The first gold coins struck in Brazil: myth or reality?

Abstract

Besieged in Pernambuco by the Portuguese, the Dutch in 1645 and 1646 issued the first coin inscribed "BRASIL" to pay their soldiers. Called obsidional coins, or seige pieces, they are said to have been fabricated by melting either African gold or gold tableware. Only in 1694 was the Brazilian itinerant mint created in Bahia; then it was successively closed and transferred to Rio de Janeiro in 1698, to Pernambuco in 1700, and back to Rio de Janeiro in 1702. This itinerary is related to the exhaustion of local metal supplies until the discovery of gold in Brazil in the late 1600s. Synchrotron radiation x-ray fluorescence (SR-XRF) analyses of a small set of coins issued by the Dutch West Indies Company and the first Rio de Janeiro mint show the use of different gold alloys, and the ratios of trace elements allow advancing several assumptions on the provenance of the gold.