1 Cruzeiro

The cruzeiro replaced the mil réis in November 1942 as part of Getúlio Vargas's Estado Novo economic reorganization — a redenomination that essentially erased the old currency's colonial-era arithmetic of réis and contos and substituted a decimal system more suited to a modernizing industrial economy. The transition was administrative as much as monetary, timed to coincide with Brazil's wartime realignment toward the Allied powers.

The aluminium bronze alloy chosen for this denomination held up poorly against the humid Brazilian climate, and circulated examples frequently show accelerated surface corrosion along the fields.