1 Centavo Chaves

The Câmara Municipal de Chaves issued this 1 centavo note as an emergency local currency — cédula — during the acute coin shortage that afflicted Portugal in the early years of the First Republic, a period when small-denomination metallic currency vanished from circulation almost entirely. Municipalities, commercial houses, and even private firms across the country resorted to their own paper scrip to keep trade moving at the counter level.

Chaves, a small garrison town in Trás-os-Montes close to the Spanish border, had particular reason to feel the shortage acutely given its active cross-border commerce. These municipal cédulas were authorized under legislation permitting local authorities to issue low-denomination notes as a temporary expedient.