5 Centimos Altafulla

Altafulla, a small coastal municipality in Tarragona, issued emergency cardboard currency during the Spanish Civil War when the Republican government's inability to maintain adequate coin supply left local economies improvising. These ajuntament-issued pieces — produced by dozens of Catalan towns simultaneously in 1937 — were a direct consequence of coin hoarding and metal requisitioning for the war effort. Cardboard was the material of last resort.

Few survived intact. The material degrades readily with handling, and most circulated examples are edge-worn or cracked.