1 Centavo Funchal

In 1917, Portugal's coin shortage reached such severity that local charitable institutions, municipal bodies, and even private businesses began issuing their own emergency paper fractions — the so-called "cédulas" or "vales." The Asilo de Mendicidade e Órfãos, a poorhouse and orphanage in Funchal, was among the more unusual issuers: a welfare institution printing its own fractional currency out of practical necessity rather than any banking mandate.

Locally printed in Madeira, this note circulated within the tight economy of Funchal's daily commerce during the acute small-change crisis of the First World War years, when bronze and nickel coinage had largely vanished from circulation across Portugal and its territories.