920 Réis - Carlos I Countermark 'PM' over 1 Thaler/Austria

Portuguese colonial administrators in Mozambique faced a persistent shortage of subsidiary coinage in the late nineteenth century, and the solution was brutally pragmatic: foreign silver already circulating in the territory was simply overstruck with official countermarks and assigned a local denomination. The Austrian Maria Theresa Thaler was the dominant trade coin across the Indian Ocean and East African littoral, making it the obvious candidate. The 'PM' punch — standing for *Província de Moçambique* — was applied at Mozambique itself, not at Lisbon, which gives these pieces an improvised colonial authority rare in Portuguese numismatics.

The date range reflects the span of the authorization, not individual striking dates — the host thalers themselves bear the perpetual 1780 date regardless of actual manufacture year.