1/2 Centavo

Chile's half centavo had a troubled existence from the start. By the 1880s, the denomination was essentially worthless in practical commerce — a full centavo could barely buy anything, and half of one was largely ignored by the public. The series continued into 1894 more from institutional inertia than economic necessity, and surviving examples in circulated grades are genuinely scarce precisely because few bothered to handle them carefully enough for them to last.