1 Portugalöser Restrike

The original Portugalöser was a Hamburg merchant's coin, first struck in 1553, denominated at ten ducats and designed to facilitate large-value trade rather than everyday commerce. Hamburg's mint revived the type periodically across several centuries — the restrike tradition itself is nearly as old as some of the earlier originals. This 2001 issue continues that practice, produced by the Hamburgische Münze as a bullion-adjacent collector piece in the same spirit as its predecessors.

The denomination name derives from the Portuguese cruzado coins that circulated as a prestige trade currency in northern European ports during the sixteenth century.