PATACA: COIN OF MACAU
1 pataca 2007: Macao Special Administrative Region of the PRC
1 PATACA - 圓 壹: the denomination of the coin is indicated in Portuguese and Cantonese.
Interestingly, when writing the denomination in Chinese, the same character 圓 (literally translated as "round") is used as for the Chinese yuan.
Guia Fortress — a 17th-century colonial military fort, chapel, and lighthouse complex in São Lázaro, Macau. The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
MACAU.
In English-language sources, the spelling of the name is found both in the Macau and Macao format. Apparently, the first version is in Portuguese, the second is an English adaptation (for example, as in the English spelling of the full official title of this part of the PRC).
A bat above a stylized image of the name Macau written in Chinese characters (澳門).
Coin design: Justino Lei.
Pobjoy Mint (Surrey, United Kingdom).
- Copper-nickel: 26 mm - 8.85 g
- Reference price: 0.8$
COIN PATACA — WHERE & WHEN (coins catalog: by names & emitents)
- MACAU (1952-...) — PORTUGUESE MACAU + MACAO SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA: pataca = 100 avo
PATACA as coin name.
Pataca — currency of the former Portuguese possessions in Asia: Macau (since 1894) and Timor (during 1894-1959). In both cases, it was worth 100 avo.
Formally, on the territory of the Portuguese Macau, the pataca was introduced in 1894, but the first coin of this denomination dates back to 1952 — a silver colonial coin with the legend "Republica Portuguesa. Macau". In the future, in addition to circulating patacas (nickel, low-value alloys), commemorative/jubilee coins of silver and gold were minted regularly. Since 1999, Macau is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China, but pataca remains the local official currency.
The current currency of East Timor or Timor-Leste (during 1702-1975 — Portuguese Timor) is the United States dollar, with the use of local centavos as small exchange coins. However, earlier the role of monetary unit was performed by the Indonesian rupiah (during 1976-1999, the eastern part of the island of Timor was occupied by Indonesia), and before that — the escudo of Portuguese Timor (since 1959). The predecessor of the escudo can be considered the Portuguese Timorese pataca, although no coin with that name was minted (only local avo).
The name of the pataca coin comes from the name of a large silver coin previously common in Asia — the Mexican peso (8 reals, also called the Mexican dollar), known in Portuguese as "pataca mexicana" (from the Arabic "abu taka" — the name of the Spanish peso).
