5 Réis - Carlos I Pattern

Carlos I's reign saw repeated attempts to rationalize Portugal's colonial coinage, and this aluminium pattern for the Azores was part of that broader effort — lightweight metal was being seriously evaluated across several Atlantic territories around the turn of the century as a cost-cutting measure for low-denomination issues. It was never adopted. The Gomes reference places this squarely among the handful of documented trial pieces from that period, most of which survived only in small quantities destined for ministry archives or presentation sets.