1 Escudo

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino's wartime and immediate postwar issues for Mozambique were driven by a chronic coin shortage that plagued Portuguese colonial territories throughout the late 1910s. This 1 Escudo was printed locally by Tipografia Minerva Central in Lourenço Marques — unusual at a time when most colonial paper money of any pretension was contracted to European security printers. Local production kept costs down but introduced inconsistencies in ink density and registration that collectors encounter regularly across the P#65 series.

The BNU held the monopoly of issue for Portuguese overseas territories, and the 1920 Mozambique fractional notes were emergency stopgaps, not prestige issues.