5 Rupias

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino held the note-issuing monopoly for Portuguese overseas territories, and this 1938 series for Portuguese India was printed by Thomas De La Rue in London — a common arrangement for colonial currencies where metropolitan prestige mattered more than local production capacity. Portuguese India at this point was an enclave economy heavily dependent on trade with British India, which created persistent pressure on the rupias issue: notes frequently crossed the border informally and were not always returned through official channels.

De La Rue's intaglio work on this series is competent but not among their more ambitious colonial commissions of the period.