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150 Réis - Alfonso VI Countermarked 2 Reales

Issuer Portuguese Crown
Year 1663
Type Standard circulation coin
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Obverse lettering 150 R
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Reverse script Latin
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Additional information

Portugal's chronic silver shortage in the early 1660s prompted the Crown to countermark circulating Spanish colonial two-reales rather than mint new domestic coinage outright. The 1663 program, carried out under Afonso VI during the ongoing Restoration War against Spain, applied a crowned countermark to these foreign pieces to legitimize them at 150 réis — a pragmatic solution that also, pointedly, reclaimed Spanish silver as Portuguese currency at a moment when the two crowns were still actively at war.

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