Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
50 Lire Credito Artigiano
| Issuer | Credito Artigiano |
|---|---|
| Year | 1977 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Lira (1861-2001) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Pale rose and light blue miniassegno with a fine guilloche underprint across the centre field. The issuer's name appears in ornate Gothic script within a decorative cartouche at the top, flanked by intricate lathe-work borders. A central vignette rendered in blue depicts an Italian architectural scene, above which the denomination '50' is printed in red at the upper right, with the payee designation 'Sarabandas Edizioni Musicali S.R.L.' and a serial number at lower left; a manuscript authorisation signature appears at lower right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | IL CREDITO ARTIGIANO pagherà a vista per questo Assegno Circolare di Lire CINQUANTA VALE 50 LIRE |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Credito Artigiano was a Milan-based cooperative credit institution founded to serve artisans and small trades — the kind of clientele that felt the 1970s Italian coin shortage most acutely. When chronic underproduction of low-denomination coinage created genuine transactional paralysis across Italian commerce, hundreds of banks and savings institutions issued their own fiduciary notes, technically mini-assegni, as functional substitutes. This 50 Lire piece is one of those emergency instruments.
The Banca d'Italia tolerated the practice rather than sanctioned it, a legally ambiguous arrangement that persisted until the state eventually resolved the underlying coin supply problem in the late 1970s.