100 Pesos

The Banco Nacional de la República de Colombia had a troubled existence from the start — its monopoly on note issue, granted in 1881, generated sustained political opposition, and by 1894 the Colombian Congress had voted to liquidate it. The notes it continued issuing through the late 1890s, including this 100 Pesos, circulated during a period of institutional death already underway, against a backdrop of severe fiscal pressure preceding the Thousand Days War, which erupted in October 1899.

Otto Schroeder's Bogotá lithography house produced this locally rather than abroad — an unusual choice for high-denomination paper at a time when most Latin American issuers sent their prestige printing to London or New York. Whether that was a cost decision, a logistical one, or a nationalist preference is not established in the surviving record.