1000 Escudos

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino's 1000 Escudos of 1974 was printed by Thomas De La Rue just as Portugal's colonial architecture was beginning to collapse. The Carnation Revolution of April 1974 ended Estado Novo rule and triggered the rapid decolonization of Portuguese Africa — Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau — territories where the BNU had functioned as the de facto central bank for decades. Notes of this series were still entering circulation when the political situation made their long-term viability uncertain.

The BNU's currency-issuing role in the overseas territories was wound down within a few years of independence, making late-dated high denominations like this one transitional issues in the most literal sense.