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500 Réis Machado de Assis
| Issuer | Casa da Moeda do Brasil |
|---|---|
| Year | 1939 |
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| Currency | Real (1799-1942) |
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| Obverse description | Front-facing bust of Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, the celebrated Brazilian writer, depicted wearing spectacles and a suit with lapels, rendered in moderate relief. The effigy occupies the central field, conveying a naturalistic portrait style characteristic of the Brazilian commemorative series of the 1930s. The curved legend MACHADO DE ASSIS arcs along the left rim, while the birth and centenary dates 1839 and 1939 flank the portrait on the left and right respectively. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse features the denomination 500 in large, bold numerals dominating the central field, with the word RÉIS directly below and the date 1939 beneath that. The legend BRASIL is inscribed across the upper portion of the field. The entire central design is framed by an elaborate decorative border of interlocking scrollwork and foliate patterns in low relief, extending around the full circumference of the coin and lending the reverse a distinctly Art Nouveau-influenced aesthetic. |
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| Additional information |
Issued the year before Brazil's Estado Novo dictatorship held its infamous "queima das bandeiras" ceremony burning state flags to assert centralized federal authority, this coin belongs to a series of commemorative 500 réis pieces celebrating Brazilian cultural figures — an unusual soft-power exercise for the Vargas regime. Machado de Assis, the son of a freed slave and a Portuguese immigrant, founded the Academia Brasileira de Letras in 1897 and is broadly considered Latin America's greatest prose writer.
The aluminium bronze composition was a deliberate postwar-era cost measure adopted by Casa da Moeda beginning in the mid-1930s, replacing the older cupronickel alloy across multiple denominations.