See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration! or register with email

Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!

5 Avos Stamp PAGAVEL EM TIMOR over '5 Avos', Macau

Issuer Banco Nacional Ultramarino
Year 1940
Type Log in to see details
Value 5 Avos (0.05)
Currency Log in to see details
Composition Log in to see details
Size Log in to see details
Shape Log in to see details
Printer Log in to see details
Designer(s) Log in to see details
Engraver(s) Log in to see details
In circulation to Log in to see details
Reference(s) Log in to see details
Obverse description Brown and cream note on the base of a Macau Banco Nacional Ultramarino 5 Avos issue, printed by the Hongkong Printing Press. The obverse carries the Portuguese armillary sphere and coat of arms vignette at upper left, with Chinese characters for the denomination at centre-left and in the lower-right corner cartouche. A red overprint reading PAGAVEL EM TIMOR is applied diagonally across the centre, with the denomination panel CINCO AVOS printed in white on a dark brown ground below it. A manuscript signature of the Gerente appears at lower right.
Obverse lettering Log in to see details
Reverse description Log in to see details
Reverse lettering MACAU BANCO NACIONAL ULTRAMARINO MACAU 5 CINCO AVOS 大西洋國海外理銀行 仙伍 澳門 PAGAVEL EM TIMOR
Signature(s) Log in to see details
Protection type Log in to see details
Protection description Log in to see details
Variants Log in to see details
Comments

When Japanese forces threatened the region in 1940, Timor faced an acute shortage of small-denomination currency. The Banco Nacional Ultramarino's solution was blunt: take unissued Macau notes, apply a handstamp reading "PAGAVEL EM TIMOR" — payable in Timor — and release them into circulation as a stopgap. The overlay also converts the face value, placing 5 Avos over whatever the underlying Macau denomination read.

The Hongkong Printing Press connection is worth noting: BNU relied heavily on Hong Kong-based commercial printers for its colonial issues during this period, a supply chain that would become untenable within two years of this note's issue.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE