2 Centésimos

Uruguay's small aluminium coinage of the late 1970s was struck against a backdrop of military dictatorship and economic deterioration — the civilian government had been dissolved by coup in 1973, and the peso's purchasing power was collapsing under chronic inflation that would only accelerate into the 1980s. Coins of this denomination saw genuine circulation, which makes clean, uncorroded examples harder to find than their modest face value would suggest; aluminium is notoriously unforgiving of humid storage conditions.