1000 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied a peculiar position in Portuguese colonial finance — it was a private institution holding a state concession, issuing currency across multiple territories simultaneously, from Mozambique to Timor. This 1000 Escudos note was issued for Portuguese Guinea, one of the smaller and economically thinner of those territories, which makes high-denomination survivor pieces comparatively rare relative to the Angola or Mozambique equivalents from the same period.

Bradbury Wilkinson produced fine-line intaglio work of consistently high quality for colonial issuers throughout the interwar decades. The 1929 date places this firmly in the period before the Estado Novo consolidated Lisbon's grip on colonial monetary policy.