500 Réis

Brazil's shift to aluminium bronze for this series came out of post-WWI metal economics and a domestic push to reduce reliance on imported coinage blanks. The Casa da Moeda had struggled through the early 1920s with inconsistent nickel supplies, and aluminium bronze offered a workable local alternative. These circulated hard through the late República Velha years, a period when regional political machines — the café com leite arrangement between São Paulo and Minas Gerais — kept federal monetary policy in a state of managed tension until Vargas ended it in 1930.