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20 Escudos 1962, Angola

in Krause book Number: 92
Years of issue: 10.06.1962
Edition: 7 499 980
Signatures: Governador: Carlos João Silva Moreira Rato (1962-1968), Administrador: Ruy de Lima Pereira de Mello (1962-1971)
Serie: 1962 Issue
Specimen of: 10.06.1962
Material: Cotton fiber
Size (mm): 131 х 62
Printer: Thomas de la Rue and coy, LTD, Londres



20 Escudos 1962




20 Escudos 1962


Engraving on banknote is made after this photo of Americo Tomaz.

Américo de Deus Rodrigues Thomaz, GCC, GOA, GOSE (November 19, 1894 - September 18, 1987). He was a Portuguese admiral and politician. Also the 13th President of Portugal.When, on April 25, 1974, the "Carnation Revolution" deposed Caetano, Thomaz was also overthrown and sent to exile in Brazil. He was allowed to return to Portugal in 1980, but he was denied readmission into the Portuguese Navy and the special pension scheme currently in place for former Presidents of the Republic.

Américo de Deus Rodrigues Tomás was born in Lisbon to his parents António Rodrigues Tomás and Maria da Assunção Marques.

He married Gertrudes Ribeiro da Costa in October 1922. The couple had two children, Maria Natália Rodrigues Tomás (born 1925) and Maria Madalena Rodrigues Tomás (born 1930).

Tomás entered high school at Lapa, Portugal in 1904, completing his secondary education in 1911. He then attended the Faculty of Sciences for two years (1912–1914), after which he joined the Naval Academy as a midshipman.

After Tomás graduated from the Naval Academy in 1916, he was assigned to the Portuguese coast escort service on Vasco da Gama and later assigned to the Pedro Nunes and the destroyers Douro and Tejo during World War I. In 1918, he received a promotion to Lieutenant.

On 17 March 1920 he was placed on the survey vessel 5 de Outubro, where he served for the next sixteen years. During this time, he was assigned to the survey mission of the Portuguese coast and was a board member of the Technical Commission for Hydrography, Navigation and Nautical Meteorology and a member of the Council for Studies of Oceanography and Fisheries. Tomás was also a member of the International Permanent Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

Tomás was appointed chief of staff to the Minister of the Navy in 1936, President of the Merchant Marine National Junta from 1940 to 1944, and Minister of the Navy from 1944 to 1958.

During his term as Minister of the Navy, he was responsible for the total reconstruction of the Portuguese commercial navy organized under Dispatch 100. Fifty six ships were ordered, with a total of more than 300,000 tons of displacement. The dispatch included statutes that also allowed the formation of what is now the modern shipbuilding industry in Portugal. Tomás' actions while serving as Minister of the Navy won him a positive reputation in the marine community, unlike the infamy acquired by several of his colleagues in the Portuguese Armed Forces (FAP) and the Portuguese government during their respective tenures.

In 1958, Tomás was chosen by then-Prime Minister António Salazar as the candidate of the ruling National Union party for the presidency of the republic, succeeding Francisco Craveiro Lopes. He ran against the opposition - backed Humberto Delgado. It initially appeared that the election ended as soon as Tomás was nominated, since the electoral system was so heavily rigged in favour of the National Union that he could not possibly be defeated. However, in an unusually spirited contest, Tomás was ultimately credited with 76.4 percent of the vote to Delgado's 23.5 percent. Most neutral observers believed, however, that Delgado would have won had the election been honest. Salazar was alarmed enough that he pushed through a constitutional amendment transferring election of the president to the legislature, which was firmly controlled by the regime. Tomás was re-elected by the legislature in 1965 as the only candidate.

Although vested with sweeping - almost dictatorial - powers on paper, in practice Tomás was little more than a figurehead for his first decade in power. For most of the existence of the Estado Novo, Salazar, as prime minister, held the real power. Indeed, Salazar had chosen him because Craveiro Lopes had shown an independent streak that Salazar didn't like. Tomás' virtual powerlessness in office under Salazar made him little more than a decorative figure at inaugurations and festivities. This, together with a natural ineptitude for speech - making, also made him a target of frequent jokes.

Tomás used his presidential prerogative just once during his first decade in office. In September 1968, Salazar was incapacitated by a severe stroke. Believing that Salazar did not have long to live, Tomás dismissed Salazar and appointed Marcello Caetano to succeed him. For all intents and purposes, the president’s power to dismiss the prime minister had been the only check on Salazar's power. However, he never informed Salazar that he had been removed as leader of the regime he had largely created. Reportedly, when Salazar died two years later, he believed still that he was prime minister.

Tomás took a much more active role in the government after Caetano took power. While he had given Salazar more or less a free hand, he was not willing to do the same for Caetano. Eventually, Tomás became the rallying point for hardliners who opposed Caetano’s efforts to open up the regime. Caetano’s reforms did not go nearly far enough for a populace that had no memory of the instability and chaos that had preceded Salazar. For instance, he left the presidential election in the hands of the regime - dominated legislature, which re-elected Tomás unopposed in 1972. However, Caetano had to expend nearly all of his political capital to wrangle even these meagre reforms out of Tomás and the hardliners, and was in no position to resist when Tomás and the other hardliners forced the end of the reform experiment a year later.

Tomás, unlike his predecessor, lived in his private residence while President of the Republic, using the Belém Palace only as an office and for official ceremonies.

On 25 April 1974, The Carnation Revolution ended 48 years of authoritarian rule in Portugal. After being removed from power, Tomás was exiled to Brazil; he was allowed to return to Portugal in 1980, but was denied reädmission into the Portuguese Navy and the special pension for former Presidents of the Republic.

Americo Tomás died at age 92 in a Cascais clinic from complications after a surgery.

port LobitoIn center is the view at port Lobito, Angola. Centered is Silo (a structure for storing bulk materials).

Lobito is a town and municipality in Benguela Province in Angola. It is located on the Atlantic Coast north of Catumbela Estuary.

It dates from 1905 and owes its existence to the bay of the same name having been chosen as the sea terminus of the Benguela railway to the far interior, passing through Luau to Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

LobitoThe city of Lobito is long considered “the guest room of Angola”. Located on the south-central Angolan coast, in the province of Benguela, it is the city that most resembles Luanda, adorned with a wide bay, where stands the Port of Lobito, and a magnificent tongue of land which penetrates the sea - the famous Restinga ex-libris of the city, which hosts the famous Carnival of Lobito.

The Restinga do Lobito is the most attractive area of the city, with over ten kilometers of white sandy beaches and clear waters, a network of hotels, restaurants and bars, which extends from the Colina da Saudade to Ponto Final, with its towering lighthouse guiding the constant movement of ships towards the country's second port in importance and grandeur, after the one in Luanda.

LobitoCategorized as “international first class seaport”, with its mineral pier recently expanded and modernized, it is in line with the Benguela Railway (CFB), for flow of goods into the interior of Angola and neighboring countries - particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, which need it mainly for export of its minerals.

The origin of the name Lobito comes from the word Pitu in Umbundu language, preceded by the particle Olu, which results in Olupitu, which means “door, walkway, passage", which the caravans of porters coming down the hills from the interior, travelled before reaching the “trade square” of Catumbela. With the passage of time, the name changed from Olupitu to Lupitu and, then, was finally translated to Portuguese to Lobito.

Historical records show that the establishment of the city was prompted by the sea access to the major resources of the area: produce of the local lime ovens, sea salt and the storage and launching point of human cargo (slaves) for international transaction; already illegal practice but widespread in the world by those who found physical shelter in this harbor and tax evasion”.

Proposals for founding the city of Lobito date back to 1650, addressed to the then Portuguese Overseas Council. Given the importance of the location, in 1842 an Regal ordinance from D. Maria II ordered the change of the administration from the “stagnant and unhealthy Benguela, to the most favorable zone, bounded by hills and low breakwater (sandbank) safe and attractive” of Lobito.

LobitoIn 1902, the potential of Lobito Bay is recognized, in 1906 the port’s project is elaborated and, in the surrounding region, the design of the first part of the city (shopping today) emerges, made official on September 2nd, 1913, by order of the governor Norton de Matos. (

The Port of Lobito is located in Lobito Bay on a sandspit approximately 4.8 km long. The port is administered by the Empresa Portuaria do Lobito. The Port of Lobito handles 2,000,000 tonnes of cargo and 370 ships annually, and along with economic development in the Benguala region, port facilities are under expansion.


Emblem colony Angola was approved in 1935. It was made in the same style all Portuguese overseas possessions:

The shield is divided into three parts forked - the left side of the three-part shield with five azure shields, each of which had five white Besant (quina, the oldest coat of arms of Portugal) symbolized the metropolis.

Average lower depicting green waves on a silver field - sign overseas possessions of Portugal.

And on the left side was a picture of the actual coat of arms of the colony - in this case - the golden elephant on a zebra on a purple field. Shield superimposed on a golden armillary sphere topped tower crown, decorated with heraldic shields with a red cross of the Order of Christ and small armillary sphere. At the bottom depicted the tape with the title of ownership.

After World War II, Portugal has not followed the example of other countries in Europe and did not grant independence to their colonies. They were declared to be "overseas territories", respectively, in the inscription on the tape the word "colony" was replaced by "province".

congolese padrao

In lower left corner - The Congolese PADRÃO of 1482.

For the purpose of the exploration and annexation of the African Westcoast by the Portuguese in the 15th century, Dom João II gave order to the navigator Diogo Cão to erect a padrão or boundary-post at certain places. This boundary-post is a reconstruction made after fragments preserved by the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, of the padrão erected on the southern bank of the river-mouth of the Zaire, called Punto Padrão and today the northwesternmost point of Angola. The inscription in Portuguese on the monument reads:


crowned coat of arms of King João II

On the die is the crowned coat of arms of King João II, borne until 1485.

It is: Argent, a cross of five escutcheons Azure, each charged with five roundles Argent in saltire, placed on the cross of the Order of Aviso andd surrounded by a bordure Gules, charged with seven castles Or. The crown is a royal crown of five fleurons and four pearls. The die is surmounted by the latin cross patonce which is the symbol of the religious branch of the Order of Christ.

Denominations in numerals are in top corners. In words at the top, centered.


20 Escudos 1962

The impala (Aepyceros melampus) herd in savannah.

Aepyceros melampusThe impala (Aepyceros melampus) is a medium-sized African antelope. It is the type species of the genus Aepyceros and belongs to the family Bovidae. It was first described by German zoologist Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein in 1812. Two subspecies of the impala have been recognised: the common impala (A. m. melampus) and the black-faced (A. m. petersi). They are typically between 120-160 cm (47-63 in) long. Males stand up to approximately 75-92 cm (30-36 in) at the shoulder and weigh 53-76 kg. (117-168 lb.), while females are 70-85 cm. (28-33 in.) and 40-53 kg. (88-117 lb.). Both are characterised by a glossy, reddish brown coat. Only the males have the characteristic slender, lyre-shaped horns, which can grow to be 45-92 cm. (18-36 in.) long.

The impala inhabits savanna grasslands and woodlands close to water sources. It is a mixed forager, whose diet consists of grasses, forbs, monocots, dicots and foliage. It switches between grazing and browsing depending on the season and habitat. Water is an essential requirement. Impala are fast runners and are known for their leaping ability, reaching heights up to 3 m. (9.8 ft.). They communicate using a variety of unique visual and vocal cues. There are three distinct social groups during the wet season: the female herds, the bachelor herds and the territorial males. The mating season is the three-week-long period toward the end of the wet season in May. A single fawn is born after a gestational period of about six to seven months. The fawn remains with its mother for four to six months, after which it joins juvenile groups.

The impala is native to Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Regionally extinct in Burundi, it has been introduced in two protected areas of Gabon. The black-faced impala is confined to Kaokoland (Namibia) and southwestern Angola. The common impala has been widely introduced in southern Africa. Though there are no major threats to the survival of the species as a whole, poaching and natural calamities have significantly contributed to the decline of the black-faced subspecies. While the common impala has been listed as of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the black-faced has been rated as Vulnerable.

Denominations in numerals are in all corners. Lower in words.


And just a few pictures of the history of Lobito:

Lobito Lobito