1000 Meticais

Mozambique's first post-independence high-denomination series was contracted to Thomas De La Rue rather than to socialist-bloc printers, a pragmatic choice that reflected the new government's need for security printing expertise it did not yet possess domestically. FRELIMO had taken power in 1975 after the Lusaka Accord, and by 1980 the country was formalizing its currency infrastructure under the República Popular designation adopted in 1975.

De La Rue produced the entire 1980 series. The 1000 Meticais sits at the top of that issue — a denomination large enough that most ordinary Mozambicans would rarely have handled one in daily transactions during a period of severe economic disruption and rural warfare with RENAMO.