60 Réis - José I Countermark 'MR' over 60 Réis (Tanga), Portuguese India

The 'MR' countermark applied to Portuguese Indian tangas circulating in Mozambique reflects a chronic shortage of small copper coinage on the East African coast throughout the mid-eighteenth century. Rather than strike new coin, colonial administrators restamped whatever copper was available — in this case, José I-era tangas pulled from Indian Ocean trade circulation and officially revalued for Mozambican use. The practice was improvised policy, not systematic reform.

The Gomes absence is telling. Many of these countermarked pieces were applied at the local level with inconsistent documentation, leaving significant gaps in the standard Portuguese colonial reference literature.