50 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino functioned not as a typical central bank but as a privileged colonial issuing house, holding note-issuing rights across Portugal's overseas territories simultaneously — Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese India, Timor, and others — with each territory receiving its own overprinted or dedicated series. This 1941 issue predates the post-war reorganization that would eventually split issuing authority along cleaner territorial lines.

Bradbury Wilkinson's intaglio work for colonial issuers of this period was among the finest available, and BNU returned to them repeatedly through the mid-century. P#39 is one of the scarcer denominations from this run; wartime shipping and disrupted distribution to some territories left portions of certain print orders unissued.