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50 Céntimos Portella
| Issuer | Ajuntament de Portella (Municipality of La Portella) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Peseta (1936-1939) |
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| Obverse description | Letterpress-printed note on olive-green card stock, with the municipal name AJUNTAMENT DE PORTELLA in large bold teal lettering across the upper portion, flanked on the right by a rectangular barcode-style ornament and on the left by two vertical rule lines. A solid downward-pointing triangle is centred in the middle field, above the denomination legend VAL PER 50 CTS. in bold teal script. The printer's imprint IMP. PAYÀ.-LLEIDA appears in small type at the lower right corner. |
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| Obverse lettering | AJUNTAMENT DE PORTELLA Val per 50 cts. Imp. Payà.-Lleida (Translation: City Council of Portella Valid for 50 Centimos / Printer: Payà, Lleida) |
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| Comments |
La Portella is a small municipality in the Segrià comarca of Lleida, and like hundreds of Catalan and Spanish towns during the Civil War, it issued its own fractional emergency currency when the Republic's coinage supply collapsed after 1936. The Ajuntament turned to a local Lleida printer — Imprenta Payà — rather than any centralized authority, which is exactly what makes these municipal notes so idiosyncratic in paper quality, typography, and surviving quantities.
The official stamp was the primary anti-counterfeiting measure, applied by hand at the moment of issue. Without it, the note was void — a common arrangement for wartime local currency that also means unstamped remainders occasionally surface and are worth considerably less.