1/2 Tanga - Filipe III Goa mint

Philip III of Spain — Philip II of Portugal, as the Portuguese counted him — ruled a unified Iberian crown that had absorbed Portugal in 1580, and these small Goan tangas were struck throughout the long, grinding period when Portuguese India was fighting off increasingly aggressive Dutch intervention in Asian trade routes. The VOC had begun systematically targeting Estado da India shipping by the 1620s, and Goa's mint was under pressure to keep local commerce liquid while the empire's Atlantic revenues haemorrhaged into war.

The fractional tanga series of this reign shows considerable die variation across the two-decade span of issue — Gomes documents multiple obverse types under F3 05.