2.50 Escudos

Portugal's silver coinage contracted sharply during the late 1930s as the Estado Novo regime prioritized foreign exchange reserves, and the .650 fineness of this issue reflects a deliberate debasement from earlier higher-purity strikes. The span from 1939 to 1948 covers the entirety of World War II, during which Portugal maintained a precarious neutrality that made Lisbon a hub for currency speculation and refugee transit — keeping demand for hard coinage unusually high while simultaneously pressuring the Banco de Portugal to conserve silver.

Individual date mintages within the Gomes R 15.0x sequence vary considerably, with certain wartime years considerably scarcer than the series bookends.