50 Centimos - Juan Carlos I

This denomination had been dormant in Spanish coinage for decades before its 1976 revival, and its reintroduction coincided with the political turbulence of the Transition — Franco had died in November 1975, and the mint was already retooling both its machinery and its iconography. The aluminium alloy chosen was a deliberate low-cost solution for a face value so negligible that production economics barely justified the issue at all.

Within a few years, inflation had rendered the 50 céntimos functionally worthless in daily commerce.