Spain. Francisco Franco. 1 Peseta 1946 estrella 48 (Rarísima)

After two years of testing, a law dated December 18, 1946 established the foundations of a new and ambitious monetary system, which relied on silver and nickel as base metals. But deficiencies in the supply of metal and machinery, due to the European postwar period, caused the government’s plans to fail, and these coins never came to light. From then on, successive laws put coins of other metals into circulation, which gradually formed the system that would be definitive.

Thus, on December 27, 1947, a new law extended the validity of the peseta coin created in 1944, but with a new design: the effigy of the Head of State on the obverse. This had already been foreseen in the mentioned 1946 law, and for that purpose the well-known sculptor Mariano Benlliure had been commissioned to create a engraving with the bust of Francisco Franco.

The work that Benlliure carried out in low relief, suitable for medal-making, was not suitable for coins, since coins require a lower relief (that does not protrude above the edge). Nevertheless, from Benlliure’s engraving dies were manufactured, with which some coins were minted in early 1948. And these turned out to be defective, because when reducing the engraving to the size of the dies, almost all the relief of the original design was lost; as a result, production had to be interrupted.