1 Centavo

Chile's centavo coinage of this period existed in a peculiar monetary limbo. The country had suspended gold convertibility in 1878 and spent the following decades navigating currency instability driven largely by nitrate export revenues and the fiscal demands of the War of the Pacific. These small copper pieces circulated heavily among the urban poor and rural laborers who rarely handled anything larger.

The series ran long enough to span two distinct political regimes and a parliamentary republic that was itself dismantled by 1925.