1 Centavo Azemeis

Oliveira de Azeméis is a small industrial town in the Aveiro district of northwestern Portugal, and this cédula — a municipal emergency note — was issued by its câmara municipal during the acute small-change shortage that plagued Portugal in the years surrounding the First World War. The central government's inability to keep low-denomination coinage in circulation forced hundreds of municipalities, charitable organizations, and commercial houses to issue their own fractional paper, most of it locally printed and of wildly varying quality.

At 1 centavo, this is about as low as municipal fiduciary issues go. The MA#1628 reference places it within the Numismática Afonso catalog of Portuguese notgeld-type emissions, a body of material still underresearched relative to its German counterparts.