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!
V Reais - António I Countermark 'AÇOR' over V Reais/Sebastião
| Issuer | Portugal |
|---|---|
| Year | 1582 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse of the host coin, a V Reais of King Sebastião I of Portugal, displays the Portuguese royal arms — a crowned shield bearing the quinas (five escutcheons) arranged in cross formation, each charged with five bezants, surrounded by a bordure of castles. A partially visible circular Latin legend surrounds the shield, though heavily worn and partially illegible due to the irregular flan and the effects of subsequent countermarking. The design follows the standard typology of mid-sixteenth-century Portuguese copper coinage struck under Sebastião I (1557–1578). |
| 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 |
When Philip II of Spain was crowned Philip I of Portugal in 1581, the prior António of Crato — the losing claimant to the Portuguese throne — retreated to the Azores, the only territory that continued to recognize him as king. To fund his resistance government there, existing copper coinage was countermarked for continued circulation under his authority. The 'AÇOR' stamp, naming the islands themselves, is the physical mark of a government in exile operating from a mid-Atlantic archipelago against a Habsburg superpower.
António held the Azores until 1583, when a Spanish fleet defeated his forces at the Battle of Vila Franca do Campo. Countermarked pieces from this episode had a circulation window of roughly two years.