Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1/2 Tostão - Sebastião I 3rd type
| Issuer | Kingdom of Portugal |
|---|---|
| Year | 1573-1578 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | The obverse displays the Portuguese royal arms at center, composed of the quinas (five escutcheons arranged in a cross) within a shield, flanked by two additional shields bearing the castles of the border, all set within a beaded inner circle. The heraldic composition is rendered in the bold, somewhat stylized manner characteristic of late 16th-century Portuguese hammered coinage. The encircling Latin legend reads SEBASTIANVS . I . REX . POR, identifying the issuer as King Sebastião I of Portugal. The flan is irregular in shape, as is typical of hammered silver of this period, with portions of the legend occasionally weak or partially off-flan. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | SEBASTIANVS . I . REX . POR |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Sebastião I inherited the throne at three years old in 1557 and spent his reign consumed by a fixation on crusading in North Africa. The 3rd type half tostão belongs to the final years before his disastrous campaign at Alcácer Quibir in 1578, where he led a Portuguese army into Morocco and was killed — along with much of the kingdom's nobility — leaving no heir and triggering the Iberian Union under Philip II of Spain just two years later.
The monetary output of these final years carries particular historical weight precisely because it ended so abruptly. Portuguese royal coinage under Sebastião effectively ceased with his death at 24.