1 Centavo Caldas Da Rainha

Câmara Municipal de Caldas da Rainha issued these small emergency cédulas during the acute coin shortage that plagued Portugal in the late World War One and immediate postwar years. The scarcity of low-denomination metallic currency forced hundreds of Portuguese municipalities to print their own fractional paper — this is one of that sprawling family of local emissions, legally tolerated but never formally backed beyond the issuing council's word.

Caldas da Rainha's emissions are among the more obscure in the Maia catalog. Survival rates for 1-centavo denominations are generally poor; they were worth almost nothing even when issued.