3 Réis - João Prince Regent

João assumed the role of Prince Regent in 1799 after his mother, Maria I, was declared mentally unfit to govern — her deteriorating condition widely attributed to the shock of witnessing Lisbon's recovery from the 1755 earthquake compounded by the deaths of her husband and eldest son. Small copper issues like this one served the chronic shortage of low-denomination coinage that plagued Portugal throughout the Napoleonic period, a problem that would grow acute after the court's flight to Brazil in 1807 effectively dismantled normal mint operations.