10 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese colonial finance — it was a private institution operating under state concession, issuing currency across multiple territories simultaneously, from Mozambique to Timor. This particular 10 Escudos note was issued for Portuguese Guinea (Guiné Portuguesa), a territory whose trade economy revolved almost entirely around groundnuts and where banknote circulation was thin enough that individual notes sometimes survived for years in active use before returning to the issuing agent.

Bradbury Wilkinson printed the BNU colonial series throughout this period under consistent contract. The P#95 watermark is the primary security feature — intaglio work was not applied to lower denominations in this series.