Item: i113193

Authentic Coin of:

Portugal – International Year of the Oceans Expo
1998 Silver 1000 Escudos 40mm (27.06 grams) 0.500 Silver (0.4340 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 707
1998 EXPO’98 REPUBLICA PORTUGUESA 1.000 ESCUDOS INCM ESCULTOR ESPIGA, Shield and logo.
1998 EXPO ’98 ESCULTOR ESPIGA ANO INTERNACIONAL DOS OCEANOS, Stylized expo designs.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Expo ’98 (1998 Lisbon World Exposition) was an official specialised World’s Fair held in Lisbon, Portugal from Friday, 22 May to Wednesday, 30 September 1998. The theme of the fair was “The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future”, chosen in part to commemorate 500 years of Portuguese discoveries. The Expo received around 11 million visitors in 132 days, while 143 countries and many organizations were represented.

The idea to organize a World’s Fair in Portugal originated in 1989 between two Portuguese, António Taurino Mega Ferreira and Vasco Graça Moura, who were in charge of organizing the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama’s arrival in India in 1498.

Once government support was obtained, Ferreira led the bid at the Bureau International des Expositions, which in 1992 declared Lisbon the winner, against the other contender Toronto, Canada. The state-owned company Parque Expo was formed to make the Fair a self-sustaining event, with revenue coming from admission tickets and, especially, sales of real estate and parcel lots at the Expo’s emplacement.

The first Commissioner of Expo ’98 (and Parque Expo’s CEO) was António Cardoso e Cunha. He was replaced in 1997 by José de Melo Torres Campos, after a general election resulted in a change in government.

The area chosen for the Expo ’98 was a 5 kilometres (3.1 mi)-wide strip that covered 50 hectares (0.19 sq mi) in Lisbon’s east-end alongside the Tagus river. The area had been landscaped in 1942 as a Hydroport, for docking the hydroplanes that crossed the Atlantic to and from the US. When the modern jet planes rendered the hydroplanes obsolete, the place became an industrial park of containers, polluting industries and slaughterhouses which had seen a growing degradation over the decades.

As a result, the Expo ’98 was fully built from scratch. Every building was pre-sold for after-Expo repurposing thus ensuring that, after the Expo closed, the site would not be left semi-abandoned, as had happened with previous expos, particularly Seville Expo ’92. As a reminder of the site’s industrial past, only a refinery tower was kept and repurposed.

To support the expected influx of visitors, an extensive access program was devised, including:

• a new bridge across the river, the Vasco da Gama Bridge (then the longest in Europe)
• a new line for the Lisbon Metro, with seven stations (five of which were ready for opening day)
• a new main multi-modal terminal, featuring trains, metro, buses, and taxis, called Gare do Oriente, by architect Santiago Calatrava.

Expo ’98 opened on 22 May 1998 with 143 countries and 14 international organizations featured in individual pavilions: almost every exhibitor respected the Expo’s theme “The Oceans: A Heritage for the Future”. There were additional themed pavilions dedicated to Water, Sea Knowledge, Virtual Reality (paid), The Future, Oceans, and Oceanophilia; as well as exhibitions: “Leonardo da Vinci@expo98 – La Dinamica dell’Acqua”, “Roads of the Porcelain”, and “Shells and Man”. Additional attractions included: a 15,000-seater Utopia Pavilion with a resident theatrical show, Camões Theatre, nautical exhibition, Garcia de Orta tropical gardens, Swatch Pavilion, “World of Coca-Cola” exhibition, Expo Adrenalin, 120 metre-tall observation tower (paid), funicular (paid), and the nightly water-show “Acqua Matrix”.

Out of the five major themed pavilions at Lisbon’s Expo 98, the Utopia Pavilion was among the most popular. Reflecting the Expo’s overall theme of “The Oceans: a Heritage for the Future” and designed by the renowned François Confino and Philippe Genty, the pavilion featured a large-scale multimedia show that presented the oceans as stimulators of imagery, taking visitors on a voyage from the creation of the world to the present day. Combining traditional stage technology with highly innovative special effects and mechanical controls, gsmprjct intégration handled all of the logistics and technical direction of the project. Housed in a custom-built covered stadium with a seating capacity of 10,000, the show was performed over 500 times, making it the first World’s Fair show to be seen by over 3 million people.

The Oceania Virtual Reality Pavilion was the biggest hit of Lisbon’s Expo 98, attracting over half a million visitors in a four-month period. Even so, the average waiting time to get in was around 4 hours. It consisted of a virtual submarine voyage to an underwater base where visitors discovered the ruins of a lost civilization and encountered a sea monster before escaping back to the surface in Teleport capsules. Despite being the only pavilion at Expo 98 that required an additional admission fee, people spent hours waiting in line for this breathtaking 30-minute thrill ride that made use of seamlessly integrated simulators, virtual reality visors, and interactive projections. gsmprjct° was commissioned to design and produce “Oceania”, planning the look and feel of the overall experience, in addition to acting as project manager, architectural coordinator, and general contractor. Divided into several rooms, the pavilion featured a 45-person simulated submarine ride and 70mm film, a 3D stereoscopic viewing system with custom content, and custom-designed motion simulators with audio-visual content.

The pavilion of Portugal hosted the Portuguese national representation during the event. It was designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira. The entrance to the building was covered by a large concrete veil, mimicking a paper sheet linking two main buildings and opening a wide urban space.

The total number of visitors of the Expo ’98 reached 10,128,204, for a duration of 132 days. Admission prices (adult) were 5,000 escudos PTE ($34 USD at then-exchange rates) for one day, 12,500 escudos ($84) for three non-consecutive days, and 50,000 escudos ($334) for three months. The Oceans Pavilion, built to be the Lisbon Oceanarium after the Expo closed, had the longest lines. Other popular pavilions, with lines of up to five hours on busier days, included Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Virtual Reality.

The Expo logo symbolizes the Sea and the Sun. It was conceived by Portuguese Augusto Tavares Dias, creative director in an advertising agency, and selected from 1,288 entries.

The Expo mascot was conceived by the Portuguese duo of painter António Modesto and sculptor Artur Moreira. It was selected from 309 entries. It is named Gil, after Portuguese navigator Gil Eanes. The name was chosen by high-school student José Luís Coelho, from 765 entries. Gil can be now seen on telethons broadcast on RTP1.

The official music theme for the Expo 98 was called “Pangaea” and was written by Nuno Rebelo. It combined chants and instruments from the five continents over an epic full orchestral score.

Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa), is a country on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, being bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. The Portugal-Spain border is 1,214 km (754 mi) long and considered the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union. The republic also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments.

The territory of modern Portugal has been continuously settled, invaded and fought over since prehistoric times. The Pre-Celts, Celts, Phoenicians, Carthaginians and the Romans were followed by the invasions of the Visigothic and the Suebi Germanic peoples, who were themselves later invaded by the Moors. These Muslim peoples were eventually expelled during the Christian Reconquista. Portuguese nationality can be traced back to the creation of the First County of Portugal, in 868. In 1139, Afonso Henriques was proclaimed King of Portugal, thus firmly establishing Portuguese independence, under the Portuguese House of Burgundy.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, under the House of Aviz, which took power following the 1383-85 Crisis, Portugal expanded Western influence and established the first global empire, becoming one of the world’s major economic, political and military powers. During this time, Portuguese explorers pioneered maritime exploration in the Age of Discovery, notably under royal patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator and King João II, with such notable discoveries as Vasco da Gama’s sea route to India (1497-98), Pedro Álvares Cabral’s discovery of Brazil (1500), and Bartolomeu Dias’s reaching of the Cape of Good Hope. Portugal monopolized the spice trade during this time, under royal command of the Casa da Índia, and the Portuguese Empire expanded with military campaigns led in Asia, notably under Afonso de Albuquerque, who was known as the “Caesar of the East”.

The destruction of Lisbon in a 1755 earthquake, the country’s occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, the independence of Brazil (1822), and the Liberal Wars (1828-1834), all left Portugal crippled from war and diminished in its world power. After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established, later being superseded by the “Estado Novo” right-wing authoritarian regime. Democracy was restored after the Portuguese Colonial War and the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Shortly after, independence was granted to all its colonies and East Timor, with the exception of Macau, which was handed over to China in 1999. This marked the end of the longest-lived European colonial empire, leaving a profound cultural and architectural influence across the globe and a legacy of over 250 million Portuguese speakers today.

Portugal is a developed country with a high-income advanced economy and high living standards. It is the 5th most peaceful country in the world, maintaining a unitary semi-presidential republican form of government. It has the 18th highest Social Progress in the world, putting it ahead of other Western European countries like France, Spain and Italy. It is a member of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations, the European Union, the eurozone, OECD, NATO and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. Portugal is also known for having decriminalized the usage of all common drugs in 2001, the first country in the world to do so. However, the sale and distribution of these drugs is still illegal in Portugal.