10 Colones

Waterlow & Sons printed this series for El Salvador through much of the mid-twentieth century, a relationship that continued even after the firm's near-collapse following the Portug­uese escudo forgery scandal of 1925 — one of the most damaging security printing frauds of the century, in which a Waterlow director authorized the production of roughly 200,000 counterfeit 500-escudo notes for a con artist named Alves Reis. The firm survived under legal and financial strain, was eventually absorbed by De La Rue in 1961.

The Banco Central de Reserva itself was established in 1934 as part of a broader monetary reform following El Salvador's suspension of the gold standard during the Depression years.