50 Escudos Serpa Pinto

Banco Nacional Ultramarino issued this note for circulation in Portuguese Guinea — one of several colonial territories the Lisbon-based bank served simultaneously with distinct but closely related series. By 1972, the independence war in Guinea-Bissau had been running for a decade, and the territory's economic infrastructure was increasingly under pressure. Notes like this one were circulating in conditions the printers in New Malden had no particular reason to anticipate.

Bradbury Wilkinson printed across a substantial portion of the British colonial and quasi-colonial world during this period, and their work for BNU followed a similar brief: clean intaglio, restrained geometry, reliable watermark. Serpa Pinto — the nineteenth-century explorer and military officer — had been a recurring figure in Portuguese colonial iconography since the Estado Novo began systematically weaponizing such names.

Guinea-Bissau declared independence in 1973. This series had roughly a year of legitimate currency life ahead of it at the time of printing.