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1 Bastardo - João III
| Issuer | Portuguese Malacca |
|---|---|
| Year | 1521-1557 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Bastardo (⅙) |
| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (1521-1557) |
| Additional information |
The bastardo was one of several fractional denominations struck by the Portuguese at Malacca after Afonso de Albuquerque seized the port in 1511, integrating the mint into a colonial monetary system designed to displace the local tin coinage that had circulated there for generations. Calin — a local tin-lead alloy — was the only practical choice; it was what the Malay economy ran on, and Portuguese administrators understood that forcing a foreign metal on the spice trade's central entrepôt would have been commercially ruinous.
The name bastardo itself signals ambiguity: neither a clean fraction nor a round value, it occupied an awkward middle position in the Portuguese colonial tariff schedule.