100 Escudos

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese colonial finance — it was a private chartered bank, not a central bank, yet it held the exclusive right to issue currency across multiple Portuguese overseas territories simultaneously. This note was issued for Portuguese Guinea, one of several territories sharing the BNU's umbrella issuing authority, at a moment when Lisbon was working hard to keep its Atlantic colonial network intact while Europe collapsed around it.

Bradbury Wilkinson's involvement was commercially routine for colonial currency of this period, though the London connection carries mild irony given Portugal's strict neutrality and the Blitz-era conditions under which the printing would have been completed.