The escudo was the currency of Portugal prior to the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 and its removal from circulation on 28 February 2002. The escudo was subdivided into 100 centavos.
Amounts in escudos were written as escudos $ centavos with the cifrão as the decimal separator (e.g. 25$00 means $25.00, 100$50 means $100.50). Because of the conversion rate of 1000 réis = $1, three decimal places were initially used ($1 = 1$000).
History
The escudo was introduced on 22 May 1911, after the 1910 Republican revolution, to replace the real at the rate of 1,000 réis to 1 escudo. The term mil réis(thousand réis) remained a colloquial synonym of escudo up to the 1990s. One million réis was called one conto de réis, or simply one conto. This expression passed on to the escudo, meaning 1,000$.
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[clarification needed]. 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centavos essentially worthless by its end, with fractional value coins with values such as 0$50 and 2$50 eventually withdrawn from circulation in the 1990s.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.
