500 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese colonial finance — it functioned simultaneously as a commercial bank and as the sole note-issuing authority across multiple overseas territories, including Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Portuguese Guinea. This 500 Escudos note was issued under that mandate, with Bradbury Wilkinson handling the intaglio work from their New Malden facility in Surrey, where they printed currency for colonial administrations across the British and Portuguese empires alike.

By 1967, Angola in particular was three years into the colonial war that would eventually outlast Portuguese rule itself. Notes of this denomination circulated alongside a wartime economy the colonial government was determined to present as stable.