1 Centavo Sabugal

Sabugal is a small municipality in the Beira Interior, near the Spanish border, and like dozens of other Portuguese câmaras in 1920, it issued its own emergency paper currency when the chronic coin shortage left the population without functional small change. The national government had effectively sanctioned this parallel local coinage in paper — a pragmatic admission that Lisbon could not supply enough low-denomination metal to keep commerce moving in provincial towns.

These câmara issues were printed in tiny quantities for purely local use, rarely traveled far, and were redeemed and destroyed once the shortage eased. The survival rate is accordingly low.