2500 Réis 4th. print - overprint 'REPÚBLICA'

This note belongs to a transitional series caught directly in the political rupture of October 1910, when the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown and the First Republic proclaimed. Banco de Portugal held stocks of printed monarchist notes and, rather than absorb the cost of entirely new print runs, applied a "REPÚBLICA" overprint to existing sheets — a pragmatic solution that left the underlying royalist imagery intact beneath the new regime's stamp.

The overprinting was done in multiple batches between 1910 and 1919, which accounts for the variation collectors encounter in ink density and alignment across the run.