500 Escudos 5th. print

Bradbury Wilkinson printed the bulk of Portugal's high-denomination interwar issues, and this 500 Escudos fifth printing falls squarely in that period of contracted British craftsmanship — Portugal lacking, at the time, a domestic security printer capable of handling this volume and complexity. The "5th print" designation matters here: it implies four earlier states of the same design, likely involving plate revisions, signature changes, or minor typographic adjustments between printings, though the core Bradbury Wilkinson intaglio work remained consistent across iterations.

P#147 is a relatively scarce series. The 500 Escudos denomination circulated at the upper end of everyday commerce in early 1930s Portugal, which limited handling — but also meant surviving examples often suffered from careful folding rather than heavy wear.