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50 Escudos
| Issuer | Banco Nacional Ultramarino |
|---|---|
| Year | 1945 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Blue-tinted note with a portrait vignette of the explorer Bartolomeu Dias at right, the Banco Nacional Ultramarino seal at left, and the Portuguese Coat of Arms at lower center. The design is framed with fine guilloche border work typical of Bradbury Wilkinson engraving. Denomination and issuing authority inscriptions appear across the face, with the date and decree number rendered in letterpress. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed in blue with red tones, the reverse centres on an oval vignette of a seated allegorical female figure with a sailing ship in the background, surrounded by elaborate guilloche scrollwork. The denomination numeral 50 appears in large counters at both left and right. The issuing bank name runs in bold lettering across the top, with the colony payability inscription above in a panel. |
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| Comments |
Banco Nacional Ultramarino occupied an unusual position in Portuguese colonial finance — it was a private institution holding the note-issuing monopoly across multiple overseas territories simultaneously, a concentration of monetary authority that had few parallels in European colonial banking. The P#44 series was issued for Portuguese Guinea, where the economic base was thin and note demand correspondingly low, meaning print runs were modest and surviving examples in any condition are genuinely uncommon.
Bradbury Wilkinson's New Malden facility was the default choice for quality colonial currency throughout the British Commonwealth and beyond — their intaglio work was among the finest available, and their security features were sufficiently trusted that rival colonial powers regularly contracted them.