1/2 Portugalöser

The Portugalöser denomination takes its name from the Portuguese gold cruzado coins that arrived in Hamburg through the city's thriving Iberian trade networks in the sixteenth century. Hamburg merchants valued them so highly as trade pieces that the mint began striking local imitations at equivalent weights — a rare case of a denomination named entirely for a foreign prototype it was designed to replace. The half piece at 17.26g corresponds to five ducats by weight.

By 1687, Hamburg's mint was producing these almost exclusively as presentation and trade pieces rather than circulating currency. Fr#1107 is among the scarcer dates in the series.