The crown of Portugal appears in the first stamps of Angola in 1870-1877. Interestingly, they aren’t the originals. The crown jewels of Portugal have been sold off and stolen quite a few times.

In 1581 King António ( he was King of Portugal for 33 days in 1580) fled to France after King Philip I was made the King of Portugal and took the crown jewels with him. His plan was to reclaim the throne of Portugal and depose Philip I, To do so he wanted Frances support and sold or gave them some of the pieces. Things didn’t work out the way he would have liked and he ended up selling all of them.

During the Portuguese Restoration War, João II of Braganza sold many of the Portuguese Crown Jewels to finance the war with Spain and in 1755 the Great Lisbon earthquake destroyed Lisbon and the Paço da Ribeira, the Portuguese royal residence of the time. With the destruction of the palace, innumerable pieces of the Portuguese Crown Jewels of the time were destroyed, lost, or stolen.

The crown shown on the stamp is from the reign of John VI of Portugal (1818 – 1825) who had it remade. John VI was a bizarre man. He hated physical activity, suffered bouts of depression, suffered panic attacks when he heard thunder and barricading himself in his room with the windows shut. He also lived in his coat, refusing to take it off and even slept in it. Seamstresses would mend it while he slept in it.

In 2002 a large part of the Portuguese Crown Jewels were stolen from the Museon in The Hague, where they were on loan for an exhibition on European Crown Jewels. They have not been retrieved and the Dutch government paid a six million euros to the Portuguese government for reparation. Since then the Portuguese Crown Jewels are currently kept in a secured vault at the Ajuda National Palace, in Lisbon.

A unique feature of the crown is that it is composed only of pure gold and red velvet, without a single precious stone or gem.