1200 Réis - Luis I Countermarked issue over '960 Réis - João VI, Brazil'

The Azores operated under a persistent shortage of silver coinage throughout the nineteenth century, and countermarking older Brazilian colonial pieces was a practical administrative solution rather than a minting exercise. The host coin here — a 960 Réis struck in Brazil under João VI — was itself already a countermarked piece, having been overstruck on earlier Spanish colonial milled silver. By 1887, the chain of official revaluations stamped onto a single planchet could span three monetary systems and two continents.

Gomes lists two varieties for this issue, L1 26.04 and 26.05, distinguished by the punch used in the 1887 countermarking. The layered nature of these coins makes authentication genuinely complex.