20 Centavos

Chile's copper coinage of the early 1940s was a direct consequence of wartime metal politics. The country had relied on cupro-nickel for smaller denominations, but Allied demand for nickel — critical for armor plating — pushed Chile, like many neutral nations, back toward straight copper. The series ran through 1953 largely by inertia, as postwar inflation steadily eroded the coin's purchasing power to near nothing.

By the early 1950s, 20 centavos would barely buy a single match.