Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
2.5 Escudos
| Issuer | Banco Nacional Ultramarino |
|---|---|
| Year | 1944 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| 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 |
| Reverse description | The centre upper area bears a circular vignette of the Portuguese state arms, wreathed with laurel branches, set against a radiating guilloche background that extends across the entire field in olive, blue and red tones. Two ornamental rosettes flank the lower centre, above a bold denomination numeral 2$50 rendered in intaglio within an arched panel, all enclosed by an intricate engine-turned border. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| 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.