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1 Xerafim - João V Dio mint

Issuer Portuguese India
Year 1729-1738
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Reference(s) Gomes#J3 82; J5 83, KM#20
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Obverse lettering D O
Reverse description Plain cross pattée at center, dividing the field into four quadrants each containing pellets or globules. The date is distributed across the four quadrants formed by the cross, reading the year in two-digit pairs (e.g., 17 / 31 for 1731), a layout typical of Portuguese colonial hammered silver of this period. The reverse field is plain with no surrounding legend, and the flan edges are irregular as characteristic of hand-struck coinage.
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Additional information

João V's Goa-area minting operation at Diu was a secondary facility pressed into service largely because the Estado da India's finances were in near-constant crisis throughout the early eighteenth century. The Xerafim, originally a unit of account inherited from pre-Portuguese monetary practice in the region, had by this period become a physically debased shadow of its sixteenth-century predecessors. The Diu mint's output was modest and its die-cutting uneven, which accounts for the considerable variation collectors encounter across the Gomes J3 and J5 die classifications within what is nominally a single type.

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