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1 Moeda = 4.800 Reis
| Issuer | Thesouraria Geral do Contracto do Sabão |
|---|---|
| Year | 1840 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in black on white paper, with a central vignette of two putti seated beneath a tree in a landscape scene, rendered in an early 19th-century intaglio style. The upper border carries the legend CONTRACTO DO SABAO within a rectangular frame, flanked by corner rosettes and the denomination UMA MOEDA and 4$800 at each side. The issuer's name, Na Thesouraria Geral do Contracto do Sabão, appears in ornate script below the vignette, followed by a manuscript promise-to-pay text, the place and date Lisboa, and a handwritten signature; a circular red validation stamp is applied to the right of the vignette. |
|---|---|
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| Protection type | Official stamp |
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| Comments |
The Thesouraria Geral do Contracto do Sabão — the General Treasury of the Soap Contract — was a Portuguese revenue-farming body, one of several such contractual monopolies the Crown used to monetize commodity trades. That a soap monopoly was issuing its own circulating paper in 1840 tells you something real about the state of Portugal's financial infrastructure at the time: the Banco de Portugal had only been founded in 1821, and fiduciary confidence in central institutions was still shaky enough that commodity-backed contract houses filled the gap.
The denomination in moedas rather than réis alone reflects a transitional accounting convention — one moeda equaling 4$800 réis was a standard unit of reckoning in Portuguese commercial practice before full decimalization.