1000 Escudos

By 1973, the escudo-denominated Angolan series was already on borrowed time. The colonial war — the Guerra do Ultramar — had been grinding since 1961, and Portugal's financial commitment to maintaining Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau simultaneously was straining Lisbon's reserves. This 1000 escudo note was issued into that deteriorating economy, and circulation in the interior was erratic at best, disrupted by active conflict zones.

Bradbury Wilkinson had been producing Angolan notes for Banco de Angola since the 1950s. The relationship ended not long after this series — the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon and Angolan independence in 1975 rendered the entire escudo coinage obsolete, replaced by the kwanza under the new MPLA government.