The Laurence Pope Collection of Portuguese Colonial Banknotes

Laurence Pope

I began collecting paper money in January 1992 and in the following spring went on holiday to Portugal, where I fell in love with her beautiful banknotes. Later I discovered that she had issued paper money for eight of her colonies and began collecting everything I could from her overseas bank, the Banco Nacional Ultramarino. Most of this bank’s notes were printed by Bradbury Wilkinson, which had a unique system of recording serial number and signature runs in their archive. As I grew fascinated by the printing process, I avidly acquired many of these specimens, proofs and archival photographs and began detailed research, which much later led to collaboration with others to author the recently published catalogue, “The Portuguese African Paper Money of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino”. This book was part sponsored by the third party grading company PMG, who will now be using its catalogue references on their holders. To further assist collectors and dealers, they also agreed to add the catalogue’s numerous sub-references and these appear in green print in the lower right corners of the holder strips. The collection includes numerous complete runs of printer’s archival specimens. As only two copies of these were ever printed, the sale provides a unique opportunity to acquire the complete record of many note issues.

Laurence Pope IBNS 7037