100 Escudos

Portugal's shift to bimetallic coinage in the late 1980s anticipated the country's accession pressures within the European Monetary System, as the escudo was being managed toward eventual convergence criteria. The 100 escudo denomination bore real purchasing weight at issue — roughly equivalent to a metro fare or a newspaper in Lisbon — and saw heavy everyday circulation before euro adoption rendered the entire series obsolete in 2002.

Production ran across three mints depending on year, and collectors tracking this type by die variety will find meaningful differences in rim definition between issues from different years in the run.