50 Céntimos Selva de Mar

One of hundreds of emergency paper issues authorized by Republican local councils during the Spanish Civil War, this note was produced by the Ajuntament of Selva de Mar — a tiny coastal village in Alt Empordà, Girona, with a population that barely exceeded a few hundred. The Generalitat de Catalunya granted municipalities the right to issue their own fractional currency from 1936 onward to address a severe shortage of small coinage, which had been hoarded or melted almost immediately after the July uprising.

Selva de Mar's output was necessarily minuscule. Notes from such micro-municipalities were often printed on whatever stock was locally available, hand-stamped, and redeemed within weeks or months before the front moved.