1 Cent

Eritrea's 1997 coinage series was among the first issued after the country's formal independence was confirmed by referendum in 1993, following a thirty-year armed struggle against Ethiopian rule. The new government prioritized establishing a distinct currency — the nakfa — as a deliberate assertion of separation from Ethiopia, which Eritrea had used the birr alongside for years after liberation.

The cent denominations saw almost no practical circulation; rampant inflation and the outbreak of the Eritrea-Ethiopia War in 1998 rendered low-value coins economically irrelevant within a year of issue.