10 Córdobas Córdoba 1912

The 2010 issue commemorates the centennial of the córdoba, Nicaragua's national currency introduced in 1912 under President Adolfo Díaz to replace the peso and stabilize an economy badly disrupted by years of political intervention — including direct pressure from U.S. banking interests who had effectively controlled Nicaraguan fiscal policy since the early 1900s. The currency was named after Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, the Spanish conquistador who founded several of Nicaragua's major cities in 1524.

The 1912 monetary reform was financed in part through the Knox-Castrillo Convention, a loan arrangement that gave American banks a controlling stake in the Nicaraguan National Bank until the 1940s.