Ecuador had struck its 20 centavos in silver through much of the early twentieth century, but wartime metal shortages pushed the country toward copper-nickel for subsidiary coinage during the 1940s. The 1946 issue falls within a transitional stretch when the Banco Central del Ecuador was managing chronic inflationary pressure tied to export volatility in cacao and balsa wood — commodities that had briefly boomed during the war years and were now contracting.
The KM#77.1b designation distinguishes this from earlier alloy variants in the same basic type, a distinction that matters more to type collectors than the catalog description suggests.
Ecuador had struck its 20 centavos in silver through much of the early twentieth century, but wartime metal shortages pushed the country toward copper-nickel for subsidiary coinage during the 1940s. The 1946 issue falls within a transitional stretch when the Banco Central del Ecuador was managing chronic inflationary pressure tied to export volatility in cacao and balsa wood — commodities that had briefly boomed during the war years and were now contracting.
The KM#77.1b designation distinguishes this from earlier alloy variants in the same basic type, a distinction that matters more to type collectors than the catalog description suggests.