50 Euro Cents Pattern

Madeira has never been an issuing authority for euro coinage — all Portuguese euro coins are struck under the authority of the Republic of Portugal at the Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda in Lisbon. This 2005 piece is a pattern or fantasy strike, produced outside any official monetary mandate, likely intended for collector sale rather than submission to the European Central Bank's approval process. Such regional fantasy patterns appeared across several Portuguese autonomous territories in the early euro period.