São Tomé de 1 Xerafim- 300 Reais - Filipe III Goa mint to Malaca

Philip III of Portugal (Philip IV of Spain) inherited a Estado da India under mounting pressure — the Dutch VOC had been systematically dismantling Portuguese trade monopolies across Asia for three decades by 1634. Gold coinage moving between Goa and Malacca at this period served the spice trade routes that Portugal was fighting, often unsuccessfully, to hold. The xerafim denomination itself derived from the Arabic ashrafi, absorbed into the Indo-Portuguese monetary vocabulary through Goa's earlier Sultanate connections.

Gomes F3 30.00 places this among the scarcer Filipe III gold issues from Goa.