Item number: A4745

Reference number: KM#520

Year: AD 1879

Material: Gold (.917)

Size: 26.8 x 26.8 mm

Weight: 17.739 g

Manufactured by: Casa da Moeda (Portuguese Mint), Lisbon

Provenance: Fuchin Coin 2026

This is a gold coin struck in AD 1879 during the reign of King Luís I of Portugal, designated as a gold crown (Coroa) with a denomination of 10,000 réis.

The obverse of the gold coin features a left-facing bust of Luís I, bearing a slight moustache and beard, with the initials ‘F.A.C.’ below the truncation of the neck denoting the engraver Frederico Augusto de Campos. Campos was responsible for designing the monarch’s portraits from AD 1867 onwards, remodelling them in AD 1878 into a bearded effigy depicting Luís I entering middle age. Circling the portrait is the Latin legend ‘LUDOVICUS · I · PORTUG: ET · ALGARB: REX · 1879 ·’, signifying ‘Luís I, King of Portugal and the Algarves’, accompanied by the date of mintage, ‘1879’. The reverse displays the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Portugal, centred upon a traditional square French-style shield enclosing five escutcheons within a bordure of seven castles, surmounted by a royal crown. The arms are set against a crowned royal pavilion (Manto em pavilhão coroado), with the mantle gathered and tied on either side by cordons terminating in tassels, and the base of the shield rests upon acanthus foliage. The bottom margin indicates the coin’s face value of 10,000 réis.

In the first half of the twelfth century, when Afonso I of the House of Burgundy secured Portugal’s independence from León, currency circulation was dominated by the debased silver billon dinheiro and its half-fraction, the mealha. Concurrently, an accounting unit modelled on the Romano-French system—the libra (pound)—was established, divided into twenty soldos, each equal to twelve dinheiros. During the reign of Sancho I, inspired by the Islamic Almoravid monetary system, Portugal struck its first native gold coin, the morabitino. Entering the latter half of the fourteenth century, Ferdinand I became embroiled in the Fernandine Wars over the Castilian succession; the consequent fiscal strain triggered precipitous debasements, spawning various coinages of fluctuating fineness such as the dobra pé-terra, the barbuda, and the grave. Following the establishment of the House of Aviz, John I drastically depreciated the alloy to finance the protracted war of independence, causing a catastrophic collapse in the intrinsic silver content of the libra system. It was not until the reign of Edward I (AD 1435–1436) that the Crown initiated a thorough reorganisation, formally abandoning the thoroughly undermined libra accounting system in favour of the more stable real branco as the legal accounting basis, thereby instituting the real (plural réis) as the core currency and unit of account for centuries to come.

The dawn of the Age of Discovery channelled vast gold and silver resources into Portuguese monetary history, while royal authority grew apace. In AD 1457, Afonso V minted the high-fineness gold cruzado; John II used the gold imported from the Guinea and Mina coasts of West Africa to strike the justo; and Manuel I, around AD 1500, produced the monumental português, valued at ten cruzados. Bearing the Cross of Christ and royal titles reflecting overseas dominion, this heavy gold piece swiftly evolved into an international medium of exchange accepted from Europe to the Far East. After reforms under John III and Sebastian I, as well as the rule of the Iberian Union between AD 1580 and 1640, the Braganza dynasty in the early Restoration under John IV managed wartime finances by countermarking existing coins with crowned stamps to raise their legal tender value, though the fundamental currency typologies underwent little alteration. In the early eighteenth century, the extensive exploitation of Brazilian gold deposits underpinned the vast coinages of John V’s reign. The Crown relocated the Lisbon Mint to new premises in AD 1720 and decreed a comprehensive reform in AD 1722 that introduced a new gold standard based on the escudo, simultaneously recruiting celebrated master engravers from France such as Antoine Mengin. This reform inaugurated the practice of depicting sophisticated royal portraits on the coinage, complemented on the reverse by elaborate baroque and rococo volutes, conchoidal motifs, and acanthus leafwork around the national arms, producing diverse varieties of escudo coinages alongside the magnificent 20,000-réis dobrão.

By the nineteenth century, in the wake of the bullion drains of the Napoleonic Wars, the court’s transfer to Brazil, and the subsequent Liberal Wars, Portugal’s traditional bimetallic and old escudo arrangements required modernising reform. On 24 April AD 1835, Maria II promulgated a decree introducing decimalisation, followed in AD 1836 by the adoption of steam-driven coining machinery and the neoclassical aesthetic pioneered by William Wyon, chief engraver of the Royal Mint. Following his accession, Peter V issued a new monetary law on 29 July AD 1854 that reconstructed the decimal framework, anchoring Portugal to the international gold standard, adjusting coin weights, and instituting a decimal gold series of four denominations: the 10,000-réis gold crown (Coroa), the 5,000-réis half-crown, the 2,000-réis fifth-crown, and the 1,000-réis tenth-crown. Nevertheless, during Peter V’s reign, the 10,000-réis coin was never issued for regular circulation, surviving merely in a handful of pattern trial strikes in AD 1861.

Upon the demise of Peter V in AD 1861, his brother Luís I succeeded to the throne. Beyond his popular, approachable demeanour, he became widely recognised in cultural and academic circles as Portugal’s ‘numismatist king’ (o Rei-Numismata). Luís I nurtured a passion for coin collecting and research from his youth, personally compiling an extensive catalogue comprising hundreds of domestic and foreign rarities as early as AD 1855 while still an infante. Following his coronation, he expanded the Royal Numismatic Cabinet (Gabinete Numismático) at the Ajuda Palace and appointed the renowned physician and historian Augusto Carlos Teixeira de Aragão as keeper of the royal collection in AD 1867. This collaboration catalogued the royal holdings into seminal treatises and presented a comprehensive chronological suite of Portuguese coinages at the Paris Exposition Universelle, bringing international renown to the nation’s numismatic heritage. During Luís I’s reign, the Lisbon Mint operated as the nation’s central coining facility, supplying regular issues for the mainland, the Azores, and Portuguese India, whilst an exclusive central bank-note issuing monopoly was conferred upon the Bank of Portugal in AD 1887. The reign of Luís I also represents the final complete historical epoch during which gold operated as legal tender in regular daily circulation in Portugal.

Among all standard circulating denominations issued under Luís I, the 10,000-réis crown (Coroa) was the most substantial and elaborately crafted large-denomination gold coin. Unlike the pattern pieces of Peter V’s era, the 10,000-réis pieces under Luís I entered sustained regular production, being struck continuously between AD 1878 and 1889. A total of 36,000 specimens were struck of the AD 1879 issue, out of an aggregate mintage of 178,700 pieces. The final batches were released only months prior to the king’s death in AD 1889; however, following the accession of his son Carlos I, the international financial crisis of AD 1890–1891 forced Portugal to abandon the gold standard, permanently driving gold coin out of general circulation. As a consequence, the 10,000-réis and 5,000-réis gold crowns endure as the last regular circulating gold coinages in Portuguese monetary history.

物件編號: A4745

參考書目編號: KM#520

年代: 公元 1879 年

材質: 黃金 (917‰)

尺寸: 26.8 x 26.8 mm

重量: 17.739 g

製造地: 葡萄牙造幣廠，里斯本

來源: 福君錢幣 2026

這是一枚公元1879年葡萄牙國王路易斯一世在位期間所鑄之金幣，幣名為金王冠幣（Coroa），幣值為10,000里爾。

金幣正面則是路易斯一世左側肖像，於嘴唇上下稍微蓄鬍，頸線下方「F.A.C.」則為雕刻師費德里科·奧古斯托·德·坎波斯（Frederico Augusto de Campos）的縮寫，坎波斯負責設計了公元1867年起的君主肖像，並於公元1878年改版為蓄鬍肖像，描繪步入中年的路易斯一世。其周圍以拉丁文環列「LUDOVICUS · I · PORTUG: ET · ALGARB: REX · 1879 ·」，意即「葡萄牙及阿爾加維國王路易一世」以及製造年「1879」。背面有著葡萄牙王國國徽，國徽中心為傳統的方形法國式盾徽，內置五面盾牌與邊框的七座城堡，盾頂覆以王冠。國徽並襯托以加冕王室斗篷（Manto em pavilhão coroado），以綴有流蘇的繩索於兩旁繫起斗篷，盾底基座則為茛苕葉飾。底部則標示著這枚金幣的面值為10,000里爾。

十二世紀上半葉，來自法國勃艮第的阿方索一世率領葡萄牙自雷昂獨立之初，市面主要流通雜銀幣（Billon）「迪內羅」（Dinheiro）與其半值輔幣「梅亞利亞」（Mealha），並確立了以羅馬—法國體系為藍本的記賬貨幣單位「里弗爾」（Libra，即磅），其下細分為二十個「索爾多」（Soldo），每個索爾多等於十二個迪內羅。到了桑喬一世統治時期，受伊斯蘭阿爾摩拉維德王朝金幣體系啟發，葡萄牙開鑄了本土首款金幣「摩拉比蒂諾」（Morabitino）。進入十四世紀下半葉，斐迪南一世對外涉入卡斯提爾王位繼承戰爭，沉重的財政負擔引發了急劇的通貨貶值，出現了「佩爾—特拉雙倍金幣」（Dobra Pé-Terra）、「巴爾布達」（Barbuda）及「格拉韋」（Grave）等成色各異的幣種。阿維斯王朝建立後，若昂一世為了支撐長期的獨立戰爭，再度大規模削弱幣材成色，導致里弗爾體系的實際含銀量暴跌。直至杜阿爾特一世時期（公元1435至1436年），王室推行徹底整頓，正式放棄徹底貶損的里弗爾記賬制，改以成色較為穩定的「白里爾」（Real branco）為法定計算基礎，從而奠定了貫穿往後數百年的核心計量與流通單位「里爾」（Real，複數形式為Réis）。

大航海時代的開闢為葡萄牙貨幣史注入了充沛的金銀資源，王室的權威也與日增長。阿方索五世於公元1457年鑄造高成色的金十字幣（Cruzado）；若昂二世憑藉西非幾內亞與米納海岸輸入的黃金開鑄了「茹斯托」（Justo）金幣；而曼努埃爾一世則在1500年前後鑄造了重達十個金十字幣的巨型金幣「葡萄牙人」（Português），這枚刻有基督十字與開拓海外領地王銜的重磅金幣迅速成為通行於歐洲至遠東的國際流通媒介。歷經若昂三世和塞巴斯蒂昂一世的改制，以及公元1580至1640年伊比利亞聯盟的統治，布拉干薩王朝在若昂四世復國初期通過對舊幣加蓋王冠印記以提升法定價值來調控戰時財政，但這段時期的貨幣形制並未有大幅的改變。十八世紀初，巴西金礦的大規模開發促成了若昂五世時期的大規模鑄幣。王室於公元1720年將里斯本造幣廠遷入新址，並於公元1722年頒布法令推行以金盾幣（Escudo，又譯為埃斯庫多）為基準的新金幣體系，同時自法國引進雕版名家蒙讓（Antoine Mengin）等工匠，在幣面上首創引入精緻的君主個人肖像，並在背面的國徽四周大量運用巴洛克與洛可可風格的渦卷、貝殼及莨苕葉飾，鑄造出包括兩萬里爾「多布朗」（Dobrão）與多款不同裝飾版式的埃斯庫多金幣。

進入十九世紀，在經歷拿破崙戰爭帶來的金銀外流、王室遷駐巴西及隨後的自由主義內戰後，葡萄牙傳統的金銀複本位及舊制埃斯庫多體系亟待近代化革新。瑪麗亞二世於公元1835年4月24日頒令推行十進制貨幣改革，並於公元1836年引進蒸汽動力機械壓印技術，以及英國皇家造幣廠首席雕刻師威廉·懷恩（William Wyon）所開創的新古典主義風格。佩德羅五世登基後，於公元1854年7月29日頒布新法律重構十進制體系，確立了葡萄牙的國際金本位貨幣框架，調整了各級貨幣的重量，並正式規劃了由四個面值構成的十進制金幣序列，分別為面值10,000里爾的「金王冠」（Coroa）、5,000里爾的半王冠、2,000里爾的五分之一王冠以及1,000里爾的十分之一王冠。然而在佩德羅五世在位期間，10,000里爾金幣並未投入常規發行，僅在公元1861年留存了極少數的試鑄樣幣。

佩德羅五世於公元1861年逝世後，其弟路易斯一世（D. Luís I）繼承王位，除了其親民的作風以外，在文化與學術界更被公認為葡萄牙著名的「錢幣學家國王」（o Rei-Numismata）。路易斯一世自幼對錢幣收藏與研究抱有極大熱忱，早在公元1855年擔任親王時便親自編纂過包含上百枚國內外珍品在內的貨幣目錄。登基之後，他更全力擴建位於阿茹達宮的王室錢幣陳列館（Gabinete Numismático），並於公元1867年任命著名醫學家兼歷史學者特謝拉·德·阿拉岡（Augusto Carlos Teixeira de Aragão）擔任皇家館藏的專門主管，不僅將宮廷藏品整理成多部劃時代的學術巨著，還親自挑選包括歷代金銀幣在內的完整序列參展巴黎世界博覽會，使葡萄牙豐富的貨幣遺產享譽國際。在路易斯一世統治時期，里斯本造幣廠作為國家核心鑄造中心，負責為本土、亞速群島及葡屬印度供應各類貨幣，王國境內亦於公元公元1887年確立由葡萄牙銀行專屬集中發行紙幣的制度。路易斯一世統治時期，同時也是葡萄牙歷史上黃金作為正規流通手段行使其法償貨幣職能的最後一個完整時代。

在路易斯一世所有發行流通的本位貨幣中，面值高達10,000里爾（Réis）的「王冠」（Coroa）金幣是最具分量的大型流通金幣。與佩德羅五世時期的停留在樣試模階段不同，路易斯一世時期的10,000里爾金幣實現了常態化的鑄造，於公元1878至1889年間持續生產。公元1879年版共鑄行36,000枚，共鑄178,700枚。公元1889年，路易斯一世去世前的數月，最後一批金幣投入市場，但隨著其子卡洛斯一世即位，不久即爆發國際經濟危機（公元1890至1891年），葡萄牙被迫退出金本位制度，流通黃金從此退出常規市面，10,000里爾和5,000里爾的金王冠幣成為葡萄牙貨幣史上最後一款常規流通的金幣。