Moidore

Moidore is an archaic term used to describe gold coins of Portuguese origin. These coins usually feature a facial value of "4000 réis", the Portuguese Coat of Arms in its obverse, and the Order of Christ Cross in its reverse, and were minted from 1677 to as late as 1910, mainly in Portugal and in Portuguese colonies like Brazil and Mozambique.

An example of a Portuguese gold coin, king Sebastian of Portugal (1557-1578)

The real (meaning "royal", plural: réis or [archaic] reais) was the currency unit of Portugal from around 1430 until 1911, when the escudo was introduced after the 1910 Republican Revolution.

Since the Portuguese empire spread throughout a vast number of territories that are now part of 53 different sovereign states, the moidore was used as currency not only in those regions but also in other regions of the globe, such as Western Europe and the West Indies. The currencies of several Arabic countries are named rial or riyal after the Portuguese real.

Origin

The name moidore is a loanword from the Portuguese expression "moeda d’ouro”, literally meaning “gold coin”.

Literary references

A coin weight for a Moidore

The first reference to moidores in an English novel is to be found in Robinson Crusoe (1719) in the penultimate chapter concerning his return to England.

There is reference to the moidore in the John Masefield poem "Cargoes":

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

There is also reference to the moidore in the book Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: "He, who apprehended I could not live a month, was ready enough to part with me, and demanded a thousand pieces of gold, which were ordered him on the spot, each piece being about the bigness of eight hundred moidores ..."

Additionally, there is at least one reference in Melville's Moby Dick: "I have seen doubloons now before in my voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain; your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes."

Moidores are mentioned in the ninth chapter of Voltaire's Candide: "... My Lady has moidores and diamonds ..."

Charles Lamb in the Essays of Elia says of Thomas Coventry that "nor did he look or walk worth a moidore less."

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four, Small wonders "how my folk would stare when they saw their ne'er-do-well coming back with his pockets full of gold moidores" when justifying his decision to help end Achmet's life for the treasure he carried.

References

Pirate Coins: Pieces of Eight, Doubloons, Moidores, Joes Numista.com: 4000 Reis coins

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