ESCUDO, the monetary unit of Portugal. Prior to the revolu tion, the monetary unit was the milreis, equivalent nominally to 108 cents, but as Portugal has never adopted the full gold stand ard, the milreis fluctuated widely in value.
The result of the revolution was to change the name of the unit from "milreis" to "escudo," and during and since the World War, it lost most of its value. In 1920 it was worth 10.49 cents, and by 1924 it had fallen to 2.8 cents. By the end of 1927 it had improved to about five cents in value. In 1931 its par value was fixed at .0442 cents (I BD to the I) and later at .0748; in Dec. 1938 it stood at .04425 cents (I i ok to the I) .
The Bank of Portugal has been given the power of note issue, to continue until 1961. In 1913, 87,000,000 escudos were outstand ing; the figure grew to 2,240,000,000 escudos by the end of 1938 when the bank had 918,686,000 escudos in gold to back this note issue. The smaller paper notes of 2.5, 5 and Io escudos formerly issued by the bank have been withdrawn from circulation and re placed by silver coins of equal value. Smaller copper-nickel coins (known as "Alpaca coins") and bronze also circulate.