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50 Escudos
| Issuer | Banco Nacional Ultramarino |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The obverse centres on the Portuguese National Coat of Arms within an ornate oval vignette, flanked on either side by decorative pillars. A horizontal band across the central vignette bears the denomination legend "CINCOENTA ESCUDOS" in capital letters, with the numeral "50" below in a cartouche. The composition is enclosed within a fine guilloche border, with the bank name rendered in bold gothic lettering along the upper margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | BANCO NACIONAL ULTRAMARINO CINCOENTA ESCUDOS 50 (Translation: National Overseas Bank, Fifty Escudos) |
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| Comments |
The Banco Nacional Ultramarino was Portugal's primary instrument of colonial finance, and by 1920 it held note-issuing authority across multiple overseas territories simultaneously — Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé, and others — which means identifying which territory a given BNU note was issued for requires careful attention to overprints and payable clauses, not just the issuing bank's name. Pick 54 sits within the Mozambique series for this period.
The 1920 date places this note in a period of significant exchange rate instability, as the Portuguese escudo had only replaced the real in 1911 and was already under severe inflationary pressure following the First World War. Colonial branch notes carried added uncertainty in circulation given the lag between Lisbon policy decisions and local monetary conditions in Lourenço Marques.