500 Escudos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino's 500 Escudos of 1974 arrives at an awkward historical moment: the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974 had already ended Estado Novo rule in Lisbon, and Portuguese Angola — one of the primary territories this note served — was in the final stretch of a colonial relationship that would formally dissolve with independence in November 1975. Notes issued in this period circulated in a colony that was already, politically speaking, dissolving under them.

Bradbury, Wilkinson produced clean, technically accomplished work for colonial issuers throughout the mid-twentieth century. The embossed seal is the sole listed security feature — modest by the standards of the denomination, though consistent with BNU's practice across the series.