50 Centavos

Issued under Portuguese colonial administration, this series coincides with the final years before Mozambican independence movements began gaining serious traction — FRELIMO would be founded in 1962, less than a decade after the last of these were struck. Portugal's Estado Novo regime under Salazar maintained tight economic control over its African territories, and the colonial coinage system was a deliberate instrument of that policy, keeping Mozambique monetarily dependent on Lisbon rather than developing autonomous financial infrastructure.

The KM#81 type replaced an earlier cupro-nickel issue, the shift to bronze reflecting postwar metal availability and cost pressures across Portuguese colonial mints.