2 500 Reis

The Banco Nacional Ultramarino, chartered in Lisbon in 1864, held monopoly rights over currency issuance across Portuguese overseas territories for much of the colonial period. This note was issued for Mozambique — the BNU operated territory-specific series, and the 2$500 Réis denomination sits in a transitional moment before the escudo system displaced the réis-based coinage accounting that Portuguese Africa had inherited from the metropole.

Pick 18 is among the scarcer BNU Mozambique issues of the 1890s; the decade brought significant instability to Portuguese colonial finances, and redemption rates were uneven across the territory.