200 Cruzeiros overprint on 200 Mil Réis P# 81

When Brazil replaced the mil-réis with the cruzeiro on 1 November 1942, the government lacked freshly printed stock in sufficient volume to handle the transition. The solution was straightforward: existing 200 Mil-Réis notes had a "200 Cruzeiros" overprint applied, converting the denomination by simple ratio — one cruzeiro equalled one mil-réis. The underlying ABNC plates were already decades old by this point, and the overprint was applied locally in Brazil rather than by the original printer in New York.

Overprint alignment varies noticeably across surviving examples, a consequence of the rushed domestic application. Notes with strongly off-center or partially missing overprints occasionally surface and generate collector interest disproportionate to the base note's modest value.