2 Mil Réis Thesouro Nacional, 1st print

Brazil's Thesouro Nacional turned to Perkins, Bacon & Petch in London for this issue at a moment when the young empire had no domestic printing capacity capable of the intaglio security work the Treasury required. Jacob Perkins — the American-born inventor whose steel-engraving process had already transformed banknote production in Britain — almost certainly cut the original plates himself, though attribution within the firm's output from this period is not always clean.

The 1835 date places this note squarely within the Regency period, when Brazil was governed by rotating regents following Pedro I's abdication in 1831. Fiscal instability was chronic; the Thesouro notes circulated alongside provincial emissions and a congested mix of copper coinage, none of which the public particularly trusted.

First-print designation matters here — subsequent printings from the same plates show measurable wear in the fine line work.