20 Centavos

The Banco Nacional de los Estados Unidos de Colombia was created by law in 1880 as the country's first government-controlled bank of issue, replacing the earlier system of private and state banks. By 1885, the country was sliding toward the civil war known as the War of 1885 — a federal-versus-centralist conflict that would ultimately bring down the United States of Colombia itself and usher in the centralized Republic of Colombia in 1886. Notes issued that year circulated under considerable political strain.

Printing by Villaveces in Bogotá rather than abroad is itself significant. Most Latin American issuers of the period relied on British or American security printers. A domestically lithographed fractional note at this denomination suggests either urgency, economy, or both.