50 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese finance: it was a private bank granted colonial note-issuing rights across Portuguese Africa, India, and the Pacific territories simultaneously. This 1921 issue was almost certainly destined for one of those colonial territories rather than metropolitan Portugal — BNU's domestic role was always secondary to its overseas mandate, and the Lisbon government's own Banco de Portugal held the mainland monopoly.

Bradbury Wilkinson handled a substantial portion of BNU's colonial note production during this period, a relationship that persisted across multiple territories and denominations. The London connection was purely practical: domestic Portuguese printing capacity for high-security intaglio work was limited.