50 Centimos Arrows down

1949 year


Copper-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)	4 g	20 mm

Description

Issuer	Spain
Ruling authority	Francisco Franco (1936-1975)
Type	Standard circulation coin
Year	1949
Value	50 Centimos (0.50&nbspESP)
Currency	Peseta (1868-2001)
Composition	Copper-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)
Weight	4 g
Diameter	20 mm
Thickness	1.4 mm
Shape	Round with a round hole
Technique	Milled
Orientation	Coin alignment ↑↓
Demonetized	1 July 1976
Updated	2024-10-07

References

Numista	N#14678
Rarity index	10%

Reverse

Coats of arms of Castilla (castle), León (lion), Aragón (pallets) and Navarra (chains) and yoke and arrows pointing down with pomegranate for the Kingdom of Granada.

Script: Latin

Lettering:
50
CENTIMOS

Engraver: Carlos Mingo López

Edge

Plain

Comment

The law providing for the design of this coin only established some general guidelines as to the contents of the obverse and the reverse. When Carlos Mingo opened the dies to mint the coin, the arrows were pointing down, in the tradition of the coat the arms of the Catholic Monarchs.

When this fact was noticed, the Cabinet passed the proposal of Minister Secretary for the Movement (the sole legal political party in Francoist Spain) to change of orientation of the arrows in order to adapt it to the Francoist symbology, which represented the arrows looking up adopting them straight from the flag of Falange Española.

The Minister for the Treasury, Santiago Benjumea, was tasked with sending a verbal noted to the Director of the Mint, who immediately stopped further minting until a new set of dies could be opened, this time with the arrows pointing up. 990,000 pieces were minted with the arrows looking down between December 15th, 1950 until February 14th, 1951 ("19" and "51" in stars left and right of España).

Interesting fact

The 50 centimos coin from Spain, minted in 1949, has a unique feature - it has arrows pointing downwards on both sides of the coin. This design was introduced to distinguish it from the 25 centimos coin, which had a similar design but with arrows pointing upwards. This coin was made of copper-nickel, a durable alloy that was commonly used in coinage at the time, and weighed 4 grams.

Price

Date	Mintage	VG	F	VF	XF	AU	UNC
1949 51	990000	-	-	-	-	-	-

Values in the table are based on evaluations by sales realized on Internet platforms. They serve as an indication only for 50 Centimos (Arrows down) 1949 coin.