1 Boliviano

The Banco Nacional de Bolivia was established in 1871, making this 1872 note among the earliest issues from that institution. The printer, Compañía Nacional de Billetes de Banco, was a New York firm that handled currency production for several Latin American clients in the early 1870s — a period when few South American countries had the infrastructure to print their own notes domestically.

Bolivia's monetary system at the time was anchored to silver, and paper money remained deeply unpopular in highland commercial culture. Actual circulation of these early Banco Nacional notes was limited and geographically uneven, concentrated in Sucre and the mining regions rather than spreading broadly.

The P#S181 prefix "S" in the Pick catalog denotes a private bank issue rather than a national government emission.