1000 Escudos

São Tomé and Príncipe declared independence from Portugal in July 1975, and this note — issued the following year — belongs to the country's first sovereign currency series. The Banco Nacional was established almost simultaneously with independence, meaning the monetary infrastructure had to be built from scratch at extraordinary speed. Bradbury Wilkinson, then still operating out of New Malden, had long experience supplying newly independent nations with their inaugural paper.

The 1,000 escudo denomination is the highest in the P#48 series, making surviving circulated examples harder to find than the lower values — high-denomination notes in small island economies tend to pass through fewer hands but get worn faster by each one.