5 Angolares

Waterlow & Sons printed this series for Banco de Angola throughout the mid-colonial period, with the 1947 date placing it squarely in the post-war reorganization of Portuguese overseas banking. Angola's monetary administration was tightened considerably after 1945, with Lisbon exerting closer control over note issuance through the Banco de Angola, which had held the circulation monopoly since 1926.

Waterlow's involvement in colonial African currency printing was extensive during this period — their London operation handled paper money for multiple Portuguese, British, and Belgian territories simultaneously, which occasionally produced shared design elements across unrelated issuers. The watermark security on P#77 is the sole mechanical anti-counterfeiting measure, typical for low-denomination colonial notes of this vintage where production cost was weighed against the note's face value.