1 Sucre Banco Sur Americano

Banco Sur Americano was one of several private Ecuadorian banks authorized to issue currency under the country's free banking arrangements that persisted into the early twentieth century. The bank operated out of Guayaquil, a port city that consistently rivaled Quito as the center of Ecuadorian commercial life, and its notes circulated primarily in the coastal trading zones rather than through any national clearing system.

By 1927, the Ley Orgánica de Bancos and the establishment of the Banco Central del Ecuador ended private note issue entirely, rendering all such commercial bank obligations void as currency. Surviving examples of P#S251 are genuinely scarce — not because of high face value, but because low-denomination private issues were redeemed aggressively or simply discarded.