Catalog
50 Mil Reis
| Issuer | Banco do Brazil, Bahia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1856 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is engraved in a classical intaglio style with an elaborate guilloche border incorporating the denomination numeral 50 at each corner and the repeated legend CINCOENTA MIL REIS along the top and bottom margins. A central vignette presents a landscape view of a Brazilian coastal city, flanked on either side by allegorical figural vignettes within oval frames, with the bold legends BANCO and BRAZIL set to the left and right of the central scene. A text panel below the vignette bears a handwritten-style promise to pay inscription in Portuguese, with signature lines for O DIRECTOR DO BANCO and O DIRECTOR DA CAIXA, and the printer's imprint of Bradbury & Evans, Bank Note Engravers & Printers, Whitefriars, London at the foot. |
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| Obverse lettering | CINCOENTA MIL REIS IMPERIO DO BRAZIL BANCO BRAZIL 2a SERIE No. Rs. 50$000 Ao portador se pagarão a quantia de CINCOENTA MIL REIS na Thesouraria da CAIXA FILIAL na Provincia da Bahia O DIRECTOR DO BANCO O DIRECTOR DA CAIXA |
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| Comments |
Banco do Brazil's Bahia branch issues are among the more obscure entries in nineteenth-century Brazilian paper money, and this 50 Mil Reis is no exception. The bank itself had been reconstituted in 1853 under Irineu Evangelista de Sousa — later the Barão de Mauá — and regional branches were authorized to issue their own notes, which circulated alongside those from Rio de Janeiro but were not always accepted at face value outside their home province.
Bradbury & Evans was primarily known as a London publishing house — Dickens's printer — but maintained a short-lived banknote division in the 1850s before the business was absorbed into other printing concerns. Their banknote output was limited, making this one of the rarer printer attributions in the Pick catalog.