10 Reis - João Prince Regent

João assumed the role of Prince Regent in 1799 when his mother, Maria I, was declared mentally unfit to rule. The 1812–1813 copper coinage was struck under extraordinary circumstances: the Portuguese court had fled to Brazil in 1807 ahead of Napoleonic forces, and the Lisbon mint was operating under a kingdom effectively governed from Rio de Janeiro. Metropolitan Portuguese coinage of this period is scarce precisely because wartime occupation disrupted normal minting cycles — French forces under Junot had only recently been expelled following the Convention of Sintra in 1808.