Francoist Coin, Made in Austria

One side of this 25-cent coin bears the date “1937 -Second Triumphal year”, the Francoist slogan “Spain, One, Great, Free”, - both in medieval-style letters - and the Falangist yoke and arrows against a rising sun. The other side of the coin depicts the monarchist coat of arms. It was the only coin issued by the Francoist government during the Civil War - and it was minted in Vienna, Austria. 

The rebel regime did a better job of affirming state power and organizing the economy than the Republicans, but there were still some basic functions it could not fulfill, and producing its own minted coins was one of these functions. The Spanish mint, and the skilled staff who worked there, were in Republican territory, and an attempt to establish a rudimentary mint in Burgos at the end of 1936 came to nothing.  This left the vast quantities of precious metals the regime acquired through expropriating the property of its enemies and donations from its supporters to languish in the basement of the Bank of Spain. As a result, people in rebel territory continued using Republican coins until well into the war. 

The Francoist government issued a decree announcing the creation of the new 25-cent coin to deal with “the scarcity of small change for small transactions” on 5 April 1938.  The timing is interesting.  It still did not have a mint, but one of its best foreign friends did, and it had lots of spare capacity. Just three weeks earlier, on 13 March, Hitler had carried out the Anschluss, incorporating Austria, where he had been born, into the Third Reich. The Austrian mint now had less to do, and Franco’s nickel and copper coins were produced there on planchets made by a metalware factory in Berndorf, Austria belonging to the Krupp empire. 

Minting these coins was small change compared to the massive military assistance Germany provided to the rebels, but it illustrates the ways in which international support influenced the war, even reaching into the daily lives of ordinary Spaniards. These made-in-Austria coins remained in circulation until 1951.