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5 Escudos
| Issuer | Banco Nacional Ultramarino |
|---|---|
| Year | 1945 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 140 × 74 mm |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Olive-brown note with a portrait vignette of explorer Bartolomeu Dias at right, the Banco Nacional Ultramarino bank seal at left, and the Portuguese Coat of Arms at lower center. The design is framed by fine guilloche underprint work characteristic of Bradbury Wilkinson intaglio printing. Denomination and issuing authority inscriptions are arranged across the face with the date and decree number. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed in olive and purple, the reverse centers on an allegorical female figure seated before a vignette of a sailing vessel at sea, rendered in fine intaglio engraving against an intricate guilloche background. The numeral '5' appears within ornate rosette panels at both left and right. The issuing bank name is split across the upper portion of the note in bold lettering, flanking the colony payability inscription. |
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| Comments |
The Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese imperial finance — a private institution granted monopoly rights to issue currency across multiple overseas territories, meaning a single printer's contract with Bradbury Wilkinson could produce near-identical note designs simultaneously destined for Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea, and other possessions, differentiated only by overprint or small textual variations. This particular series required the issuer to specify the colony in the print run itself, rather than relying on post-press modification.
Bradbury Wilkinson's New Malden facility was producing currency for dozens of colonial administrations through the 1940s, and quality control on wartime and immediate postwar paper stock was notoriously variable across the industry. Notes from this 1945 run should be examined for toning along fold lines, which is a known characteristic of the paper batch rather than mishandling.