50 Pesetas Banco de España - Gijón

The Gijón branch of the Banco de España issued this note in 1936 under circumstances that had nothing to do with normal banking operations. When the Civil War fractured Spain along military lines, regional branches in Republican-held territory were cut off from Madrid and forced to produce their own emergency currency independently. Gijón, the industrial port city in Asturias, held out as a Republican enclave until October 1937.

Notes from this branch are among the more geographically specific of the Spanish Civil War emergency issues — Asturias was physically isolated from the main Republican zone after the fall of Irún in September 1936, making its currency effectively local scrip for a surrounded region.