10 Pesos Regent Queen Maria Cristina

El Banco Español de Puerto Rico was the island's sole bank of issue under Spanish colonial administration, and this series was produced by ABNC during a politically volatile period — Spanish sovereignty over Puerto Rico would collapse entirely within a year of the last issue date. Notes bearing the regency title of María Cristina were technically still valid tender when the U.S. military landed in 1898, creating an immediate and messy currency question for the occupation authorities.

The ABNC contract for Puerto Rican colonial paper is one of the more unusual American printing house engagements of the period — a U.S. firm producing sovereign currency for a Spanish colony, shipped across the Atlantic to circulate in the Caribbean.