2 Reales Bolivianos

Banco J. Benites é Hijo was a private commercial bank operating out of Tarija, the southernmost department of Bolivia — geographically and economically closer to Argentina than to La Paz. That proximity explains why the notes were printed across the border rather than through any European house, an unusual arrangement for Bolivian private banking of the period.

The 1867 dating places this squarely in the era of Bolivia's fractured private banking experiment, before any formal framework for note-issuing banks existed in the country. Benites was operating largely on commercial reputation alone. Very few notes from this issuer survive in any condition; the bank's reach was regional and its circulation life almost certainly short.