4 Xerafins São Tomé - José I Goa mint

The xerafim was a unit of account peculiar to Portuguese India, its name derived from the Arabic *ashrafi*, and the four-xerafim gold piece occupied the upper register of a coinage system that had to function across Goan trade networks dealing in everything from pepper to textile credits. José I's reign coincided with the dominance of the Marquis of Pombal, whose sweeping colonial monetary reforms in the 1760s directly prompted reissues and restruck denominations across Portuguese overseas mints — Goa included.

The Goa mint operated with considerable autonomy, and die workmanship on this type is notoriously uneven across the production window.