50 Céntimos Os de Balaguer

Os de Balaguer is a small municipality in the Noguera comarca of Lleida, and like hundreds of Catalan and Spanish towns during the Civil War, it issued its own emergency fractional currency in 1937 when Republican-zone coinage virtually disappeared from circulation. Silver and copper had been hoarded, melted, or requisitioned, leaving a crippling shortage of change for everyday transactions. Municipal councils stepped in — not by choice but by necessity.

Imprenta Unió Obrera in nearby Balaguer printed this note, the press name itself reflecting the collectivized labor structure of the Republican rear in that period. Turró catalogues hundreds of these Catalan municipal emissions; 1723 is a late enough number to suggest Os de Balaguer's issue was neither early nor particularly large in scope.