50 Avos

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino's wartime Macau issues occupy an odd corner of colonial monetary history. By 1942, Hong Kong was under Japanese occupation, yet this note was printed there — almost certainly completed before the December 1941 fall of the colony, with the notes subsequently held or transferred to Macau for release during the occupation period.

Macau itself remained nominally Portuguese and neutral throughout the Pacific War, a precarious status that kept it functioning as a financial outlier while every neighboring territory was absorbed into the Japanese sphere. The 50 Avos was a low-denomination workhorse in that environment.