25 Patacas

Banco Nacional Ultramarino had long relied on European printers for its colonial issues, making this note an anomaly: printed locally in Macau by Litografia Sin Chok & Ca. during the Japanese occupation of surrounding territories. With sea routes to Portugal severed and the colony itself operating under extraordinary pressure as a neutral enclave inside Japanese-controlled southern China, local production was the only viable option.

The wartime circumstances show in the printing quality. Sin Chok was a commercial lithographer, not a security printer, and the notes reflect that — fidelity to the design is inconsistent across the run.