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2.5 Escudos
| Issuer | Banco Nacional Ultramarino |
|---|---|
| Year | 1944 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Intaglio-printed portrait of António Enes in an oval vignette at left, with his name inscribed below. At right, a circular bank seal vignette shows a steamship at sea, surrounded by the legend of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino. The denomination in bold letterpress reads DOIS ESCUDOS E CINCOENTA CENTAVOS across the centre, with the date LISBOA, 23 de Maio de 1944 below, and two manuscript signatures of bank officials at the foot of the note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANCO NACIONAL ULTRAMARINO MOÇAMBIQUE COLONIA PORTUGUESA DOIS ESCUDOS E CINCOENTA CENTAVOS DECRETO Nº 17.154 LISBOA, 23 DE MAIO DE 1944 O ADMINISTRADOR O PRESIDENTE DO CONSELHO ADMINISTRATIVO BRADBURY, WILKINSON & CO LD GRAVADORES, LONDRES |
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| Comments |
Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese colonial finance — it held the note-issuing privilege not for metropolitan Portugal but for the overseas territories, a mandate it exercised across multiple distinct currency zones simultaneously. This 2.5 Escudos denomination was specific to Portuguese Guinea, one of the smaller and more commercially isolated of those territories, where fractional notes served real transactional purposes that coins could not reliably fill.
Bradbury Wilkinson produced the plate work in London, as they did for a considerable run of BNU colonial issues through the 1940s. The 1944 date places production during wartime, though Portugal's neutrality insulated the BNU printing program from the disruptions that affected other colonial currency arrangements at the time.