10 Centavos = 1 Real

The Banco Nacional de Colombia was a state-controlled institution created specifically to finance the government, and by 1885 it was operating under serious fiscal strain — the country was sliding toward the civil conflict that would become the War of Thousand Days, though that particular rupture was still fifteen years off. The more immediate pressure in 1885 was the federalist-centralist struggle, and paper money from this institution circulated under forced tender laws that made public acceptance legally mandatory but practically contested.

Homer Lee Bank Note Co. was a New York firm that handled a significant share of Latin American government printing work during this period, competing with the better-known American Bank Note Company. The dual denomination — centavos on one face, reales on the other — reflects Colombia's transitional monetary arithmetic during decimalization.