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50 Céntimos Tortosa
| Issuer | Ajuntament de Tortosa (Municipality of Tortosa) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1937 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 99 × 59 mm |
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| Obverse description | A panoramic vignette across the lower portion of the note presents a view of the Ebro River as it passes through the city of Tortosa, with three bridges rendered in fine detail: the iron Carrilet belt bridge (1887), the State Highway bridge (1889), and the Northern Railroad bridge (1868). The municipal coat of arms of Tortosa is positioned in the upper right corner, serving as the principal heraldic element of the design. The remaining surface carries the text of the promise to pay in Catalan, set in a typographic letterpress composition. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | 50 CENTIMS (Translation: 50 Centimos) |
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| Comments |
Tortosa issued its own fractional currency in 1937 because the Spanish Republic's central authorities had largely lost control of small-change supply during the Civil War. Copper and silver had vanished from circulation — hoarded, melted, or simply unavailable in a fragmented wartime economy — and municipalities across Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia stepped in with their own emergency paper.
Gráficas Bobés produced notes for dozens of these local issuers out of Barcelona, which makes individual attribution straightforward but also means the printing quality varied considerably depending on where each municipality sat in the print queue.
Tortosa itself was on the front line — the city fell to Nationalist forces in April 1938, cutting short whatever remained of these notes' circulation life.