2 Centavos Santo Tirso

Portuguese municipal emergency paper — cédulas — were issued in large numbers during and after World War One, when metal coinage effectively disappeared from circulation due to hoarding and wartime metal demands. Santo Tirso, a small municipality in the Ave River valley north of Porto, was among the many local authorities authorized to produce their own low-denomination fractional notes to keep daily commerce functioning. The Banco de Portugal had neither the capacity nor the inclination to solve the problem at the retail level, so municipalities were left to fill the gap themselves.

These cédulas were locally produced with minimal security features, which makes condition highly variable and outright counterfeits not unknown among the smaller issuing authorities.