Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
São Vicente 'P-O' - Sebastião I Porto mint
| Issuer | Portugal |
|---|---|
| Year | 1557-1578 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Standing figure of Saint Vincent, patron saint of Portugal, depicted in clerical vestments holding a palm frond in his right hand and a book in his left, centrally placed within the coin field. Two six-pointed stars appear flanking the figure at mid-height on either side. The mint mark 'P-O' appears at each side of the saint, with Gomes Se 71 exhibiting three points over the 'P' and Se 72 showing no points over the 'P-O'. The peripheral circular legend reads SEBASTIANVS : I : REX : PORTVGALIÆ : E P-O in Latin characters, separated by decorative stops. The hammered flan presents the characteristic irregular roundness typical of mid-sixteenth-century Portuguese gold coinage. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Standing figure of Saint Vincent in clerical robes, rendered in a similar Gothic-influenced style to the obverse, occupying the central field of the coin. The saint is depicted facing forward, with attributes consistent with his iconography in Portuguese royal coinage of the reign of Sebastião I. Two stars are visible in the field flanking the figure. The circular peripheral legend reads ZELATOR : FIDE VSQVE ADMORTE in Latin, a devotional motto referencing zeal in faith unto death. The coin exhibits the irregular, slightly convex flan surface characteristic of hammered gold coinage of the period. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Sebastião I inherited the Portuguese throne at three years old in 1557, and the regencies that governed in his name during the early part of this coinage's issue period — first his grandmother Catherine of Austria, then Cardinal Henrique — maintained mint output largely to sustain the administrative machinery of a far-flung empire increasingly straining its finances. The Porto mint's production of this type ran concurrently with Lisbon's, distinguishable today primarily by the mint mark rather than any substantive design change.
Sebastião's catastrophic defeat at Alcácer Quibir in 1578, where he died without an heir and took some 8,000 Portuguese soldiers with him into Moroccan captivity or death, ended not just the reign but the Aviz dynasty itself — and with it, Porto's output of this type.