10 Escudos

Portugal was under Salazarist dictatorship for most of this coin's design life, but the 1971 issue arrived just as Marcello Caetano had replaced the ailing Salazar — who suffered a fatal stroke in 1970 after years of incapacitation. The Estado Novo regime was hemorrhaging money and political will fighting three simultaneous colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, consuming over 40% of the national budget by the early 1970s.

The series was cut short by the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, which ended 48 years of authoritarian rule in a nearly bloodless coup led by the Armed Forces Movement.