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300 Réis - 8 Vinténs of gold Royal Gold Foundry Houses, 1st. Print
| Issuer | Reaes Casas de Fundição do Ouro da Capitania de Minas Geraes |
|---|---|
| Year | 1808 |
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| In circulation to | 1809 |
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| Obverse description | Typeset letterpress printing in black on white paper. The numeral "8" appears at the top centre, flanked by two small typographic vignettes, with the full textual denomination and issuing authority set in multiple lines of letterpress type across the face of the note. The overall design is purely typographic with no pictorial imagery, consistent with the utilitarian emergency issue character of these Minas Gerais gold foundry notes. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 8 Reaes Casas da Fundição do ouro da Capitania de Minas Geraes oito vintens de ouro Trezentos reis. (Translation: 8 Royal Gold Foundry Houses of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais Eight gold vinténs Three hundred réis.) |
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| Comments |
These notes were authorized under a royal decree of 1808, issued by the gold foundry houses of Minas Gerais as a local fiduciary instrument backed by gold deposits held at the foundry — essentially warehouse receipts circulating as currency in a captaincy where coin was chronically scarce. The timing was not coincidental: the Portuguese court had just fled Lisbon for Rio de Janeiro in November 1807 ahead of Napoleon's invasion, and the resulting administrative disruption accelerated the need for paper substitutes in the interior.
Francisco Antônio da Silva engraved the plates locally, making this one of the earliest known examples of banknote engraving executed within Brazil itself rather than sourced from a European press.