1 Centavo José Martí

The 1953 centavo was issued specifically to mark the centennial of José Martí's birth — a date the Batista government exploited with considerable political calculation, flooding the island with commemorative coinage bearing the revolutionary poet's image at a moment when genuine revolutionary sentiment was already building against the regime. Martí had died in 1895 leading the charge against Spanish rule; by 1953, Fidel Castro would launch his assault on the Moncada Barracks in July of that same centennial year, explicitly invoking Martí's name as justification.

The series ran for only two years under the KM#26 type before the Revolution rendered the Banco Nacional's pre-Castro issues obsolete.