1 Centavo Espinho

Associação Comercial e Industrial de Espinho was a local merchants' and industrialists' association in the small coastal town of Espinho, Portugal — not a bank, not a government body. It issued this note during the severe coinage shortage that gripped Portugal in the years immediately following the First World War, when bronze and copper fractional coins had all but vanished from everyday commerce. Municipal associations and private entities across Portugal stepped into that gap with their own emergency paper, collectively known as cédulas or notgeld-equivalents, and Espinho was among dozens of towns that did so.

The 1-centavo denomination is among the smallest practical values struck in this form anywhere in Portuguese emergency issues.