1 Peso

The Tesorería General de Nicaragua occupied an unusual position — a government treasury office issuing currency directly rather than through a chartered bank, a workaround common in Central American states where banking infrastructure remained underdeveloped and foreign concessions complicated matters. This 1896 peso is an overprint on stock originally prepared for the Banco Agrícola Mercantil, which never fully established itself as a functioning note-issuing institution. Rather than waste engraved ABNC plates and printed sheets, the treasury simply overstamped existing inventory.

The Banco Agrícola Mercantil base notes are scarce without the overprint. Surviving examples with it are not common either, given Nicaragua's turbulent monetary history through the late 1890s and early 1900s.