10 Escudos

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino served as the currency-issuing authority for Portuguese overseas territories rather than metropolitan Portugal itself, and this 10 Escudos series covered the final years of the Second World War — a period when shipping disruptions between London and Lisbon made distributing colonial currency considerably more complicated than in peacetime. Three distinct signature combinations across the 1943–1945 window suggest either management turnover or deliberate administrative staggering of issue dates, which was common practice in BNU series to control circulation volumes by territory.

Bradbury Wilkinson's colonial note contracts were extensive during this period, and their intaglio work for BNU issues is among the more technically consistent of the era. The specific territory of issue is the critical variable here — P#90 notes could circulate across multiple Portuguese African and Asian possessions.