Brazil P225 C212 200 Cruzeiros on P221 200 Cruzados Novos 1990 UNC｜República centennial

In 1990, as part of Brazil’s ongoing struggle with chronic inflation, the government decided to simplify the monetary system by reverting to the historic name cruzeiro, creating what is known as the third cruzeiro. The change was largely nominal rather than substantive: one cruzeiro (Cr$) was set equal to one cruzado novo (NCz$), with no immediate redenomination, and was intended to signal a psychological reset and a return to a familiar national currency identity after a decade of rapid, confusing monetary reforms. In practice, however, inflation soon resumed, and the revived cruzeiro would itself be short-lived, replaced in 1993 by the cruzeiro real and then, in 1994, by the real.

Front:

• República, an allegory representing the republic personified as a woman
• Engraving symbolizing the meeting of republican ideals with Silva Jardim, Benjamim Constant, Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca and Quintino Bocaiúva 

Back:

• The painting Pátria by Pedro Bruno (1888-1949), embroidering of the Brazilian flag in a family scene.

Printing: polychromy in chalcography

Watermark: República

In Brazilian iconography, República is personified as a woman, following the classical tradition of portraying the state as a female civic figure (like Marianne in France or Britannia in Britain). After the fall of the monarchy in 1889, this allegorical woman came to symbolize the new republican order: liberty, citizenship, and the sovereignty of the people replacing the emperor. On banknotes, medals, and official art, she is often shown wearing a Phrygian cap (emblem of freedom), with calm, dignified features, embodying the abstract idea of the nation as a collective “public body” rather than a royal family—Brazil itself, reimagined as a secular, modern republic.