5 Rupias

Banco Nacional Ultramarino's Goa branch issues from the early 1920s occupy an awkward and interesting position in Portuguese colonial monetary history. The BNU had held the exclusive right of issue for Portuguese India since 1906, but the low-denomination rupia notes of this period were printed in London by De La Rue while the political ground in Lisbon was anything but stable — the First Portuguese Republic was in its final, chaotic years before the 1926 military coup ended it.

De La Rue's involvement here is worth noting: the firm printed for dozens of colonial issuers simultaneously, and the BNU Goa series from this decade shows the restrained intaglio quality typical of their London work between the wars.