History
The escudo was introduced on 22 May 1911, after the 1910 Republican revolution, to replace the real at the rate of 1,000 réis to 1 escudo. The term mil réis (thousand réis) remained a colloquial synonym of escudo up to the 1990s. One million réis was called one conto de réis, or simply one conto. This expression passed on to the escudo, meaning 1,000.
The escudo's value was initially set at 675$00 = 1 kg of gold. After 1914, the value of the escudo fell, being fixed in 1928 at 108$25 to the pound. This was altered to 110$00 to the pound in 1931. A new rate of 27$50 escudos to the U.S. dollar was established in 1940, changing to 25$00 in 1940 and 28$75 in 1949.
Inflation throughout the 20th century made centavos essentially worthless by its end, with fractional value coins with values such as $50 or 2$50 eventually withdrawn from circulation in the 1990s. With the entry of Portugal in the Eurozone, the conversion rate to the euro was set at 200$482 to €1.
Read more about this topic: Portuguese Escudo
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