Fifth Known Goa Manoel or Cruzado

Triton XVII, Lot: 1060. Estimate $10000. Sold for $9000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

INDIA, Colonial. Portuguese India. D. Manuel I o Afortunado (the Fortunate). 1495-1521. AV Manoel or Cruzado (25mm, 4.56 g, 1h). Goa mint; Afonso de Albuquerque, viceroy. Struck after 12 March 1510. Armillary sphere set on base; border composed of pellets within two circles / Open-work cross pattée with central pellet within circle; pellet at each angle; border composed of pellets within two circles. F. Rebello, “Confirma-se a existencia do Manoel ou Cruzado de ouro cunhado após a conquista de Goa,” Numismatica 94 (September-December 2005), p. 5, I-II; Vaz, Indo-Portuguese E1.01 = Gomes 21.01 (Índia Portuguesa) [both illustrated with line drawing]; cf. Grogan, Numismática Indo-Portuguesa, pp. 56-57 and pl. 3, 43 (for type; illustrated with line drawing); Friedberg 1449 = Triton X, lot 1233. Good VF, traces of deposits, a couple of hairline flan cracks. Extremely rare.

Afonso d'Albuquerque, commonly known as Albuquerque the Great, first conquered Goa in February 1510. Holding onto the area for only three months, he was driven out by Yusuf Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur. With the arrival of reinforcements from Portugal, Albuquerque renewed his attack, capturing Goa for certain in November of the same year. Soon after the Portuguese first took Goa, they established a mint there on 12 March 1510; it was subsequently re-established following the second conquest. Albuquerque established the mint following representations by the local chiefs that the commercial activity of Goa had been suffering due to the scarcity of coinage. For Albuquerque, the production of coinage would provide an opportunity to announce Portuguese sovereignty over its first overseas territory. He was, however, respectful of local tradition and a practical administrator, an attitude that would have been reflected in the issue of this gold coin.

Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese, Goa had been under the rule of a number of external rulers. For almost three centuries, several local Kadamba kings of Goa struck gold pagodas of about 4.4 g (see Triton VIII, lot 1611 for an issue of Sivachitta Permadideva [1147-1187]). A rare pagoda of Ramachandra (1270-1311), also struck at Goa (see The New York Sale XVII, lot 349), demonstrates that pagodas of at least this weight were accepted as normal currency. Other than these issues, no gold coinage seems to have been struck in Goa until the arrival of the Portuguese.

This coin demonstrates that the Goa mint under Albuquerque struck gold coinage in two weight standards. Unlike the Triton X specimen, which weighed 3.42 g and which was meant to correspond to the weight of Portuguese cruzados, this example at 4.56 g would have followed a local standard that was tied historically to Goa. Since Albuquerque had established the mint at Goa on the insistence of the local chiefs for the purpose of revitalizing commerce, minting gold coins of this type would have not only emphasized Portuguese sovereignty over its new territory, but it also would have been diplomatically sensitive to issue gold coinage at a historically local weight. With the introduction of cruzados at 3.5 g, however, the circulation of the heavier weight coins would have caused numerous difficulties – since the two would have been circulating side-by-side – and thus the heavier coins would have been driven out of circulation quickly (if indeed they were not recalled and recoined). The extreme rarity of the type as a whole suggests that gold coinage was not struck for long after the opening of the mint. The confusion of weights may have contributed to this quick demise and a move to supersede this system with a more consistent one based on the Portuguese reis.

For further information, see Teotonio R. de Souza ("A Study on the Indo-Portuguese Coinage and the Working of the Goa Mint," Indian Numismatic Chronicle 10 (1972).