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| Issuer | Banco Nacional de S. Tomé e Príncipe |
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| Year | 1982 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | First Dobra (1977-2017) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Blue, green and multicolour underprint with a banana bunch vignette at centre. Portrait of national hero Rei Amador at right, rendered in intaglio, with the Coat of Arms at lower left. Two signature lines appear at bottom, flanking the date and decree inscription. |
|---|---|
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| Protection description | Rei Amador portrait watermark |
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| Comments |
São Tomé and Príncipe gained independence from Portugal in July 1975, and the Banco Nacional was established shortly after to replace the colonial escudo with the dobra. By 1982, the country was operating under a Marxist single-party government that had nationalized the cocoa plantations — historically the islands' entire economic foundation — with predictably damaging results. The dobra was not convertible, and notes of this denomination circulated in an economy of chronic shortages.
Bradbury Wilkinson handled much of the printing work for newly independent African states during this period, offering established intaglio infrastructure that nascent central banks could not otherwise access.