Angolan Escudo

The most striking fact about the Angolan Escudo is that its higher denominations, like the 2½ escudo coin, were minted from silver sourced from recycled Portuguese coins, reflecting the empire's thrifty reuse of materials during economic strain in the 1930s.

This currency, issued for Portuguese Angola between 1928 and 1952, came from the Lisbon mint and carried designs typical of colonial issues: the obverse bore the Portuguese coat of arms, while the reverse often showed a palm tree or native motifs. Variations in metal composition, from silver to cupro-nickel, depended on global metal prices and wartime shortages. We don't know the exact mintage figures for many years; records from that era are spotty.

Oddly enough, some escudos turned up in unexpected places, like old trading posts in the Congo, as if the coins had their own colonial adventures.