Bages de Rubi — also recorded as Bages d'en Selves — was a small municipality in Catalonia that issued its own emergency cardboard currency during the Spanish Civil War under the Republican monetary decentralization that briefly allowed local councils to produce their own scrip. Hundreds of Catalan municipalities did the same between 1936 and 1938, driven by a catastrophic shortage of small-denomination metal coinage after silver and copper were hoarded or requisitioned for the war effort.
Cardboard issues from villages this size survive in wildly uneven numbers — some printings were tiny, others were never redeemed and simply discarded at the war's end.
Bages de Rubi — also recorded as Bages d'en Selves — was a small municipality in Catalonia that issued its own emergency cardboard currency during the Spanish Civil War under the Republican monetary decentralization that briefly allowed local councils to produce their own scrip. Hundreds of Catalan municipalities did the same between 1936 and 1938, driven by a catastrophic shortage of small-denomination metal coinage after silver and copper were hoarded or requisitioned for the war effort.
Cardboard issues from villages this size survive in wildly uneven numbers — some printings were tiny, others were never redeemed and simply discarded at the war's end.