40 Réis - Maria I Large Type, Low and High Crowns, Lisbon Mint

Maria I's copper coinage of the late 1780s was issued against a backdrop of serious monetary disorder in Portugal, where a chronic shortage of small-denomination coin had driven widespread counterfeiting and the unofficial use of foreign copper. The 40 Réis was struck in volume precisely to address this gap. The "Low Crown" and "High Crown" varieties — distinguished by the positioning of the crown element in the die — emerged not from deliberate design revision but from the use of multiple working dies cut by different engravers at the Lisbon Mint over the run's decade-long span.

Bentes lists these as separate catalogue entries (299 and 300), and the distinction matters for serious collectors of Portuguese copper.