São Tomé de 2,5 Xerafins - João V Goa mint

The xerafim was a unit of account deeply embedded in Goa's hybrid monetary economy, where Portuguese colonial administration collided with pre-existing Indo-Portuguese commercial customs. João V's long reign — the longest of any Portuguese monarch of his century — produced considerable variation in Goa's gold coinage, with local mint workers operating under looser supervision than their Lisbon counterparts. The São Tomé denomination specifically carried religious resonance tied to the apostle revered as the evangelizer of India, a naming convention the Estado da India maintained deliberately to reinforce Catholic authority over the subcontinent trade routes.

Gomes catalogues this type with documented die variation across the reign span.