1 Sol

Peru's fiscal emission board — the Junta Administradora y de Vigilancia de la Emisión Fiscal — was established by emergency decree in 1879 specifically to fund the War of the Pacific, which had broken out that same year against Chile. These notes were an instrument of wartime finance, not routine monetary policy, and the decision to contract the American Bank Note Company in New York reflected both the absence of adequate domestic printing capacity and a desire for security features that local printers could not supply.

The war went catastrophically for Peru. Chilean forces occupied Lima in January 1881, and the fiscal emission notes lost nearly all practical value long before any formal demonetization. Survivors are scarce precisely because very few people had reason to preserve them.