20 Centavos

Chile's silver coinage of this period was produced under contract at foreign mints — primarily Santiago, but with dies and technical supervision often sourced abroad — as the young republic struggled to maintain consistent domestic minting capacity. The 1870s brought particular pressure: nitrate revenues were fueling economic expansion, but the War of the Pacific loomed just over the horizon, and monetary policy was already straining under convertibility disputes that would eventually force Chile off silver entirely by the 1890s.

KM#138.1 distinguishes this variety from later issues with subtle die differences in the denomination rendering.