Catalog
1 Centavo Oliveira Do Hospital
| Issuer | Câmara Municipal de Oliveira do Hospital |
|---|---|
| Year | |
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| Reference(s) | MA#1633 |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed in green on cream paper, the reverse centres on a large oval vignette enclosing a rural pastoral scene: figures tend a flock of goats and sheep beneath a spreading tree, with rolling hills and a mountain landscape in the background. The issuer's name "CAMARA MUNICIPAL DE OLIVEIRA DO HOSPITAL" arches across the top of the oval, and the denomination "VALE 1 CENTAVO" appears in a cartouche at the foot of the vignette. The whole composition is enclosed within a decorative guilloche border with foliate corner ornaments. |
| Reverse lettering | CAMARA MUNICIPAL DE OLIVEIRA DO HOSPITAL VALE 1 CENTAVO (Translation: Oliveira do Hospital Municipal Council / Worth 1 Centavo) |
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| Comments |
Oliveira do Hospital is a small inland town in the Coimbra district of central Portugal, and like hundreds of other municipalities, it issued its own cédulas — emergency paper fractional currency — during the severe coin shortage that gripped Portugal from roughly 1917 onward. The national government's inability to keep small-denomination metallic coinage in circulation forced local chambers, pharmacies, commercial associations, and even individual merchants to fill the gap with locally printed notes.
Municipal cédulas of this type were technically illegal tender beyond their issuing locality. Most were printed in very small runs and redeemed quickly once conditions normalized, which is precisely why surviving examples are disproportionately scarce relative to their humble face value.