The 960 Reis Overstrikers

shirohniichan

Has anyone read this book by David Levy? If so, how was it?

I recently bought an 1810 960 reis overstruck on a Carolus III 8 reales. I bought the coin because I was interested in why Brazil overstruck so many silver crowns instead of making its own blanks, and I wanted to read a reference to find out why. Did they not have the blank-cutting machinery? Were they in a rush? Were they simply cutting corners?

sumnom

They must have been cutting corners. The coins look pretty round to me.

newsman

The 960 reis coins came about after Napoleon conquered Portugal, forcing the Portuguese monarchy to flee to Brazil and rule from there. To raise money, the new government purchased Spanish 8-reales coins and other crowns at a discount (I think it was 820 reis) and had them recoined into 960 reis pieces. This process continued into the early years of the independent Brazilian empire.

Virtually all 960 reis coins are overstrikes. Coins struck from original planchets are extremely rare, though I have seen ones that are struck over other 960 reis pieces.

Edited to add: As I understand it, another problem was the lack of silver available in Brazil.

spinaker2000

Pirate booty!!

shirohniichan

<< <i>The 960 reis coins came about after Napoleon conquered Portugal, forcing the Portuguese monarchy to flee to Brazil and rule from there. To raise money, the new government purchased Spanish 8-reales coins and other crowns at a discount (I think it was 820 reis) and had them recoined into 960 reis pieces. This process continued into the early years of the independent Brazilian empire.

Virtually all 960 reis coins are overstrikes. Coins struck from original planchets are extremely rare, though I have seen ones that are struck over other 960 reis pieces.

Edited to add: As I understand it, another problem was the lack of silver available in Brazil. >>



So, in short, they were debasing the coinage to pay for the royals' expenses?

newsman

<< <i>

<< <i>The 960 reis coins came about after Napoleon conquered Portugal, forcing the Portuguese monarchy to flee to Brazil and rule from there. To raise money, the new government purchased Spanish 8-reales coins and other crowns at a discount (I think it was 820 reis) and had them recoined into 960 reis pieces. This process continued into the early years of the independent Brazilian empire.

Virtually all 960 reis coins are overstrikes. Coins struck from original planchets are extremely rare, though I have seen ones that are struck over other 960 reis pieces.

Edited to add: As I understand it, another problem was the lack of silver available in Brazil. >>



So, in short, they were debasing the coinage to pay for the royals' expenses? >>



And to pay for the war against Napoleon, yes.

shirohniichan

How long did the overstriking last? Did they stop after Nappy was defeated in Russia, or did they wait until after Waterloo? Or even later, perhaps?

sumnom

So, in short, they were debasing the coinage to pay for the royals' expenses?

Same old song and dance.

newsman

<< <i>How long did the overstriking last? Did they stop after Nappy was defeated in Russia, or did they wait until after Waterloo? Or even later, perhaps? >>



1810-1826

shirohniichan

Why did they stop?

josemartins

I didn't read the David Levy book, but it was very well recommended by some Brasilian friends, David actually made some posts in the Portuguese coin forum a few months ago, he's now researching the Brasilian 640 réis overstrikes of D. João (over "J" coins or Portuguese cruzados).

Almost everything has been said, but I think that the main reason to stop the overstrikes was the change of the monetary system from the "Pataca" (320 réis) to the "Cruzado" (400 réis).


José

gxseries

My god, the number 960 is sure funky.

I am quite sure that I have mentioned about overstriked coins before. Brazil is definately not the only exception in such overstriking examples. Sorry, but as my main collection features Russian coins, I can only tell the aspects of Russian overstrikes.

Russian overstrikes were usually made because of the following reasons:
a) sudden change of economical situation and metal value got reevaluated, i.e. inflated or deflated (remember that coins used to have some value by the mass of it's metal content? )
b) genuine lack of raw materials
c) to save time from melting the whole coinage and striking new coins

The best example is the 1762's coinage, where copper values were temporarily inflated to exactly twice the value. Most certainly there wasn't much time and hence quite a heavy amount of them were overstriked. But in the following year, the clause was thrown out of the window and hence there was a huge need to get rid of the temporarily inflated copper coins and it was again overstriked.

I have about 8 examples in my collections:
My collection

Little did I notice that I have gone overboard by having too much overstriked coins...