Banco Francisco Argandoña was a private commercial bank operating out of La Paz during Bolivia's free-banking period, when the state had effectively ceded note-issuing authority to a cluster of regional private institutions. The arrangement lasted roughly two decades before the Banco de la Nación Boliviana absorbed most of these privileges in the early twentieth century.
Bradbury Wilkinson's involvement is the main technical point of interest here. The London firm handled security printing for numerous South American private banks during this period, and their intaglio work gave these provincial issues a quality of engraving that far exceeded what the issuing banks themselves could have arranged locally.
At 100 Bolivianos, this was a high-denomination instrument — almost certainly used for inter-merchant settlement rather than retail trade.
Banco Francisco Argandoña was a private commercial bank operating out of La Paz during Bolivia's free-banking period, when the state had effectively ceded note-issuing authority to a cluster of regional private institutions. The arrangement lasted roughly two decades before the Banco de la Nación Boliviana absorbed most of these privileges in the early twentieth century.
Bradbury Wilkinson's involvement is the main technical point of interest here. The London firm handled security printing for numerous South American private banks during this period, and their intaglio work gave these provincial issues a quality of engraving that far exceeded what the issuing banks themselves could have arranged locally.
At 100 Bolivianos, this was a high-denomination instrument — almost certainly used for inter-merchant settlement rather than retail trade.