Coins of the Chilean peso

The design on the obverse of all the coins look very similar to the modern coin in circulation, with the denomination in big numbers, and the name of the currency under the denomination, with the year it was minted being under the name of the currency. The reverse on all coins depicts a condor, the national bird of Chile, standing on top of a rock with its wings semi-open as if it were warming its body up, the image of the condor used in the reverse is the same as the design of the reverse of the coins of the first peso.

The 1 and 50 cent coins are shaped like a circle while the 5 and 10 are in the shape of a dodecagon.

The 1 cent were originally made of aluminium, the 5 and 10 made of aluminium bronze, but the 5 and 10 later changed to aluminium. The highest denomination is made from the same material as the 5 and 10 peso coins, aluminium bronze, which looks like gold.[3]

After the Escudo was replaced by the second peso in 1975, the “Centavo” was introduced alongside it. It had, at the start of 1975, an equivalent value to the American Penny . The Cent was worth 1/100 of Peso, therefore was reliant on the value of the pesos to maintain any sort of use as currency.[4]

As soon as the Peso and Centavo were introduced, their value fell by 300%[2] in the first 2 years of circulation, as money had to be printed for it to enter general circulation, and the Peso wasn’t at the time pegged to the Dollar but a free floating currency, its value fell. The lose of value was exacerbated by the Chilean Crisis of 1982, during the years of the crisis (1982-1985), the peso lost 164.78% of its value compared to the dollar.

Graph of Chilean inflation

From 1975 to 1983 (the period of time in which the Centavo was minted), the Peso lost 884.1% of it value, meaning that while a Centavo in 1975 had a value of 1 penny, in 1983 that same centavo would have had the value of 0.001 (1/1000th) of a penny.