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1/2 Bazaruco - Pedro Prince Damão or Dio mint
| Issuer | Portuguese India |
|---|---|
| Year | 1670-1680 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1/2 Bazaruco (1⁄750) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central field displays a Portuguese royal shield in relief, flanked on either side by the mint letters D and O identifying the Damão or Diu mint. The design is crudely struck on an irregular flan, consistent with the hammered coinage technique employed at the Portuguese Indian mints during the late seventeenth century. The shield's details are worn but its heraldic form remains identifiable. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
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| Additional information |
Pedro ruled as Prince Regent of Portugal from 1668 until his brother Afonso VI's death in 1683, never formally king during this coinage's production. The bazaruco was the smallest denomination in Portuguese India's monetary hierarchy, a unit so debased by the mid-seventeenth century that the Estado da India struggled to maintain confidence in copper issues across its shrinking coastal enclaves. By the 1670s, Portuguese territorial control on the subcontinent had contracted dramatically from its sixteenth-century peak, with Goa the only major holding of consequence.
Attribution to Damão or Diu specifically remains unresolved in the literature — Gomes lists the mint ambiguously, and no die evidence has conclusively separated the two.