500 Cruzeiros Thesouro Nacional, 1st print, 'Valor Legal'

By the time this note entered circulation, Brazil's inflationary spiral was already making 500 cruzeiros a denomination of limited practical life. The Thesouro Nacional series was a direct product of the Kubitschek government's aggressive development spending — particularly the construction of Brasília — which had badly strained federal finances and forced repeated expansions of the money supply throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s.

The two signature combinations reflect genuine ministerial turnover: Walter Moreira Salles, who signs across the heavier series runs, was a banker and diplomat of considerable standing, later founder of what became Unibanco. The American Bank Note Company's New York plant handled the full production run, as was standard for high-denomination Brazilian federal paper of this period.