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Cruzado gold coin

Afonso V, first struck 1457　・　gold　・　15th century　・　Porto

Cruzado gold coin（obverse）
Hispalois / CC BY-SA 4.0（Wikimedia Commons）

The name means "one who bears the cross". Created in answer to the pope's call for crusade, the coin was sustained not by faith but by gold arriving from the Gulf of Guinea. Struck thereafter without debasement, it became a byword for Portuguese credit. The gamble of navigation and the steadiness of the coin: two faces of the same kingdom.