20 Mil Réis 3rd. Banco do Brazil, 3rd. Series

The third Banco do Brasil was a private institution, chartered in 1851 under the patronage of the Viscount of Mauá — Irineu Evangelista de Sousa — whose expansionist financial ambitions eventually outpaced the bank's reserves. This 20 mil réis note belongs to the series issued during the bank's most active years, before the monetary disruptions of the late 1850s forced a contraction of its note-issuing operations.

The watermark remains the sole security measure, which was not unusual for Brazilian private bank issues of this period but left these notes notably vulnerable to counterfeiting — a problem that dogged the Mauá bank throughout its existence.