10 Escudos Overprint on 10 000 Pesos P#118

Chile's monetary reform of 1960 replaced the peso with the escudo at a rate of 1,000 to 1 — one of the most dramatic redenominations in South American history up to that point, driven by chronic inflation that had eroded the peso's purchasing power for decades. Rather than wait for entirely new stock, the Banco Central simply overstamped existing 10,000 peso notes with the new escudo value. It was a practical stopgap, not a planned issue.

The overprint was applied by the same Santiago facility that produced the underlying notes, which makes provenance straightforward — but also means that wear on the base note and legibility of the overprint can vary independently of one another.