100 Escudos Canary Islands, Gold

Portugal's Descobrimentos commemorative program, launched in the 1980s, was one of the most ambitious numismatic series of the late twentieth century — ultimately spanning decades and dozens of issues tracing each leg of the Portuguese Age of Discovery. The Canary Islands piece honors Diogo de Silves, credited with the Portuguese rediscovery of the archipelago around 1341, though the islands had been known to Genoese navigators earlier and appear on the Portolan chart of Angelino Dulcert from that same year.

The .999 fineness distinguishes this from the bimetallic and silver siblings in the R79 run.