5 Mil Reis

The Thesouro Nacional — Brazil's National Treasury — issued this series through the American Bank Note Company at a moment of genuine institutional instability. The 1880s saw repeated conflicts between the Treasury and the Banco do Brasil over the right to issue paper currency, with competing notes circulating simultaneously and public confidence in government paper chronically low.

ABNC's New York production is identifiable by the quality of the intaglio work, characteristic of the company's Brazilian contracts throughout this period. The A264 prefix designation places this among the earlier Pick assignments in the Imperial Brazilian sequence, predating the republic's monetary reorganization of 1890.