10 Centavos

Banco Nacional Ultramarino's Cape Verde branch issues are among the more obscure Portuguese colonial paper of the early twentieth century, and the 1914 S. Tiago fractional notes occupy a particularly narrow window. The BNU had operated in the archipelago since 1865, but low-denomination emergency fractionals like this one typically emerged in response to coin shortages — a chronic problem in the islands, where metallic currency drained steadily toward trade deficits and hoarding.

Bradbury, Wilkinson produced high-quality security printing for colonial issuers across the British and Portuguese empires alike. The perforation security feature is the sole anti-counterfeiting measure noted for this type — modest even by 1914 standards.