81 | Spanish Banknotes

Automatically generated translation

5 Pesetas. August 10, 1938. Series A. (Edifil 2021: 435A). AFRICA typographic overload, in red. Extremely rare, it retains all its original finish. Good Extremely Fine. It matches the one photographed at Edifil and the one auctioned at the Caja Madrid Auction.

The differentiation of money in circulation in some territories of a country is a mechanism originally designed to prevent capital flight and maintain sufficient cash in that area. A simple mechanism to accomplish this task is the use of stamps, wet or dry. A Ministerial Order of April 22, 1939 urged the stamping of the word “AFRICA” on the Francoist emissions of 1938, in theory with the justification of preventing smuggling in the Protectorate of Morocco, estimated at about 300 million pesetas. Only those could circulate in the region, preventing their illegal entry into the rest of Spanish territory. The idea for this project came from Juan Beigbeder Atienza, then High Commissioner of Spain in Morocco.

There was never any official regulation on the matter, only two proposals from the Ministry of Finance, and they were never put into circulation for fear of the drop in the price of the peseta in the Tangier area. Yes, some dies were engraved with the stamp and typographic stamping was carried out diagonally on the obverse of a series of banknotes. It is not clear if they limited themselves to creating a sample series or if millions of pesetas were actually stamped, because the survivors are minimal.

There are also forgeries of these stamps made using wet stamps in modern times. The original plates, as mentioned for letterpress printing, have a subtle pattern inside each letter precisely to make counterfeiting difficult; modern ink pads cannot reproduce it.
Needless to say, these authentic banknotes are extraordinarily rare, if not unique.