Collection - Coins and Notes - Diário de Notícias #48 20 Escudos

Pick 116 belongs to the postwar inflationary period when Banco de Portugal was under extraordinary pressure to expand the money supply. Portugal had entered the First World War in 1916 partly to protect its African colonies from Allied partition, and the fiscal cost proved ruinous — by 1920 the escudo had lost the vast majority of its prewar purchasing power, and notes of this denomination were circulating alongside a cascade of emergency cédulas issued by municipalities and commercial houses to address the chronic shortage of small change.

The "Diário de Notícias" suffix in collector nomenclature refers to a promotional album series issued by that Lisbon newspaper decades later — the note itself predates that association entirely.