Unpublished Malacca Pardáo

CNG 84, Lot: 1788. Estimate $5000. Sold for $3900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MALACCA, Colonial. Sebastião I o Desejado (the Desired). 1557-1578. AV Pardáo d’ouro (19mm, 3.35 g, 12h). Crowned royal coat-of-arms; M A across field, each letter surmounted by pellet / Crown over three crossed arrows; • (uncertain letter) • (R or B) across field. Unpublished in the standard references. Good VF, areas of weak strike.

The obverse of this coin is stylistically similar to contemporary São Tomés of Goa (see CNG 82, lot 1282 [listed as Filipe I]) - although with the G A (the mint signature for Goa) being replaced by the letters M A (the mint signature of Malacca) - as well as the silver Meio Bastiao issues of that mint for Sebastião. Likewise, the reverse design parallels the Goa mint copper 2 Bazarucos issues for the same king (cf. Gomes 14.01 and 15.01). Such a connection between the mints of Portuguese Goa and Malacca makes good sense, since it was the Portuguese governor of India, Afonso de Albuquerque who, in 1511, following the earlier establishment of a mint at Goa, used the territory as a base from which to launch his conquest of Malacca. Once completed, de Albuquerque established a mint there as well in order to facilitate Portuguese trade in the Indian Ocean with a more available supply of coinage (which had been the pretext for de Albuquerque’s conquest of Malacca).