10 Centavos = 1 Real

Colombia's Banco Nacional was a state-owned institution established in 1880 specifically to give the government direct control over paper money issuance — a move that broke sharply from the private banking model that had dominated the previous decade. This note, denominated in both centavos and reales, reflects the awkward transitional arithmetic of Colombian currency in the mid-1880s, when the older real-based reckoning still held enough popular traction that dual denominations were considered necessary for daily commerce.

The ABNC contract for this series is well-documented. The 1885 date is significant: the War of 1885 forced the government to lean heavily on Banco Nacional emissions to finance federal military operations, accelerating the inflationary spiral that would eventually destroy the bank's credibility entirely.