10 Pesos Oro

Colombia's Banco de la República was established in 1923 — the same year this note was issued — as part of a sweeping monetary reform recommended by the Kemmerer Mission, the U.S. financial advisory team led by Princeton economist Edwin Kemmerer. The bank replaced a chaotic system of private and departmental issuance that had plagued the country since the nineteenth century, and these early ABNC-printed notes were quite literally the first centralized paper currency Colombia had ever produced.

American Bank Note Company held the contract from the outset, and the quality of engraving reflects their top-tier work of the period. The Pesos Oro denomination was explicit policy — a direct anchoring of the currency to a gold standard written into the bank's founding charter.