3 Centavos

El Salvador's small-denomination brass coinage of the early 1970s was produced during a period of relative economic stability before the country descended into civil conflict later that decade. The 3 centavos denomination itself is an oddity — threefold fractional coins are uncommon in Latin American monetary systems, where binary or decimal subdivisions were the norm, and its continued production into the 1970s reflects a pricing structure in the local economy that still made the denomination practically useful at point of sale.