10 Cruzeiros

Brazil's currency system was in freefall by 1965. The cruzeiro had been hemorrhaging value since the early 1960s under successive governments' deficit spending, and the military junta that seized power in April 1964 inherited an inflation rate exceeding 80 percent annually. Aluminium was chosen for this denomination not as a cost-saving afterthought but as a direct response to metal hoarding — earlier cupronickel pieces were being pulled from circulation for their intrinsic value.

The cruzeiro itself would survive only until 1967, when the regime redenominated at 1,000-to-1, introducing the cruzeiro novo.