200 Réis - José I Colonial Coinage

José I came to the throne in 1750 inheriting a colonial monetary system plagued by chronic shortages of small silver and rampant counterfeiting of locally-circulating cobs. The 1755 Mozambique issues were part of a deliberate effort to impose standardized milled coinage on the East African trade routes — routes then dominated by Indian Ocean commerce with Goa, Macao, and the Swahili coast, where worn and clipped silver circulated by weight rather than face value.

The Lisbon earthquake struck on November 1st of this same year, killing tens of thousands and destroying much of the mint's administrative infrastructure. How many pieces of this issue were struck before or after that catastrophe remains unresolved in the surviving records.