1000 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position among colonial-era issuing banks — it was a Lisbon-chartered private institution granted concession rights to issue currency across Portugal's overseas territories, meaning this note technically circulated under commercial authority rather than direct state control. By 1964, that arrangement was increasingly anachronistic; nationalist movements across Portuguese Africa were already forcing Lisbon to reconsider the entire framework of ultramarino administration.

Bradbury Wilkinson's New Malden facility was the dominant supplier to colonial and Commonwealth issuers through the mid-twentieth century, and their intaglio work on high-denomination notes of this period is generally crisp and deeply impressed. The 1000 Escudo denomination would have seen limited everyday circulation — more likely used for interbank settlement and large commercial transactions than retail trade.