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50 Céntimos Albagés

Issuer Ajuntament d'Albagès (Municipality of L'Albagès)
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Value 50 Centimos (0.50 ESP)
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Obverse description Plain buff card stock with dark blue letterpress typography. The issuer name AJUNTAMENT D'ALBAGES appears in two lines in the upper right, separated from the denomination text by a horizontal rule and a row of downward-pointing triangular ornaments; to the left, a vertical group of thick and thin rules serves as a decorative vignette alongside a vertical serial number. The denomination Val per 50 cts. is set in bold type across the lower portion, with the serial prefix No. at lower left.
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Protection type Official stamp, Handwritten signature
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Comments

L'Albagès is a small municipality in Les Garrigues, Lleida, and like hundreds of Catalan and Spanish towns it resorted to locally printed emergency fractional currency during the Civil War after the Republican government's coin shortage of 1936–37 stripped ordinary commerce of small change. These municipal vales — issued by the ajuntament rather than any banking authority — were purely functional stopgaps, redeemable in theory but often stranded when issuing municipalities were overrun or simply ceased to function.

The handwritten signature and applied stamp were the only authentication mechanisms, which made forgery trivial and redemption disputes common. Turró catalogues this piece under #54, placing it within a well-documented but still incompletely surveyed body of Catalan local issues.

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