V Reais - Sebastião I

Sebastião I came to the Portuguese throne at age three in 1557, and these copper reais circulated through a reign defined by regency, Jesuit education, and an increasingly messianic obsession with crusade in North Africa. The coins were struck at a moment when Portugal's imperial finances were straining badly — silver from the Estado da India was unreliable, and copper fractional currency bore the practical weight of everyday commerce that bullion coinage could not.

The reign ended at Alcácer Quibir in 1578, where Sebastião died without an heir at roughly 24, triggering the succession crisis that delivered Portugal into the Spanish Habsburg union two years later.