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5 Escudos
| Issuer | Banco Nacional Ultramarino |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio printing on a multicolour guilloche underprint. An oval portrait vignette at left bears the likeness of Francisco de Oliveira Chamiço, flanked by the Portuguese Coat of Arms at lower centre and the bank seal at right. The note is dated Lisboa, 1 de Janeiro de 1921, with the issuing authority and Cape Verde provincial inscriptions distributed across the face, and the printer's credit along the lower margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Black intaglio on a multicolour guilloche underprint with orange numerals. A central oval vignette, framed by the circular bank title legend, presents a seated allegorical female figure gesturing toward a sailing ship in the background. Large letterpress numeral "5" appears at both left and right margins within ornate guilloche borders, with the printer's imprint along the lower edge. |
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| Comments |
Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese colonial finance — it held the right of note issue across multiple overseas territories simultaneously, and this 5 Escudos note, though bearing no explicit territorial designation in its title, was authorized for circulation in the Portuguese colonial sphere rather than metropolitan Portugal. Bradbury, Wilkinson's engraving work for BNU during this period was consistently fine, and the firm had a long-standing relationship with Portuguese colonial issuers stretching back into the nineteenth century.
The 1921 date places this squarely in the post-WWI monetary disorder that affected Portuguese finances severely — the escudo itself had only replaced the real system in 1911, and inflation through the early 1920s made small-denomination notes like this one churn through circulation rapidly.