10 Centavos Arcos de Valdevez

Hospital de S. José in Arcos de Valdevez was among dozens of Portuguese institutions — municipal chambers, charities, commercial associations — that issued their own cédulas during the acute small change shortage that gripped Portugal from around 1917 onward. The crisis followed wartime metal demands, with bronze and cupro-nickel coins effectively disappearing from circulation. Local institutions stepped in by printing their own fractional paper, technically unauthorized but tacitly tolerated by Lisbon until the shortage eased.

A hospital issuing currency is the detail worth pausing on. These were not banking entities — the notes functioned as scrip redeemable locally, and their acceptance depended entirely on community trust in the institution behind them.