Autographed Brazil Banknotes History

I like giving talks about my banknotes to my clubs. I am now investigating the history of the 3 notes from Brazil pictured below. In Numista there is a vague description insinuating that all of those note were hand signed by several inspectors. I find it hard to believe that every one of the 200 million notes printed (100, 50,50 respectively) were hand signed.
I have tried to research it but have come up empty. Does anyone out there know any info, or can lead me to the info... Thanks Ray

I have some signed banknotes, but never questioned myself about this.

Doing a quick research, it seems that those banknotes were indeed manually signed by employees of the Amortization Fund (Caixa de Amortização, 1828-1967), at least in theory.

I've found a description of the procedure in this 1885 law (that replaced an older law).

Any employee of the bank could sign those emissions, even outside of their workstations and work schedules — in fact, the the Inspector, the Treasurer and their assistants were the only ones that weren't legally obliged to autograph banknotes. Some employees (carimbadores, conferentes) had to sign banknotes anytime they weren't executing their specific duties.

The Fund should prepare a list containing the name and signatures of every employee that signed banknotes, and how many banknotes of each type they signed. For example, the collector Bruno Diniz identified autographs of doormen, etc.

There are some other interesting details in the law, like the prescription that the autographs should fill as much space as possible.

Yes, it sounds like a Sisyphean task.

Just an addendum, after further research: although the Caixa de Amortização existed until 1967, it stopped directly regulating paper money in 1945.

Why did the sign them though?

Verweis : "German_empire5_mark_fan"​Why did the sign them though?

In one of the sources I previously linked, there's a quote by Florisvaldo dos Santos Trigueiros mentioning that the Amortization Fund's autographs were "used for a long time as an element of authenticity".

I understand that it was initially introduced to avoid counterfeits.

But I suspect it may have became a measure against inflation, specially after convertibility was abandoned.

there has got to be a book or an article on these

If they were hand signed, they signed 547,945 bankotes each day, every day, for a whole year. That is 54,794 banknotes each hour - if they work 10 hour days. If you have one hour of spare time, try signing 57,794 pieces of paper.

I guess the operative word was they. They could be 2 or 2000