500 — Five Hundred Escudos
The artwork
Front: João de Barros in profile at the right, bearded and in sixteenth-century dress, printed in deep wine red with his dates, 1496–1570, set vertically beside him. To the left, a hemispherical world map with the Portuguese shield laid over it and two small figures below, over a ground of repeated microtext. A gold vertical panel carries the value 500; the plate mark reads CH-13.
Back: A Portuguese party in the East: soldiers with pike and helmet, a robed figure with a book, an elephant and its keeper to the left, and a great gilded compass rose with an armillary globe at its centre. Along the foot, in Barros's own words, "dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente".
In circulation
The last 500-escudo design, issued from the mid-1990s and dated here 17 April 1997. It circulated until the euro replaced the escudo in cash on 1 January 2002, at 200.482 escudos to the euro, after which Banco de Portugal exchanged the notes over a long redemption window.
Details
- IssuerBanco de Portugal
- CurrencyEscudo
- DenominationFive Hundred Escudos
- Collectedon the Portugal journey, 1998
- SeriesChapa 13 (CH-13), dated Lisboa, 17 de Abril de 1997
- SignatureO Governador and O Administrador
- SecuritySee-through register device, printed red at the lower left of the face and lower right of the back