20 Mil Réis Banco Emissor do Norte

The Banco Emissor do Norte was one of several regional banks created under Brazil's 1888 banking reforms, which dramatically loosened the rules on note issuance in an attempt to stimulate industrial investment. The result was a proliferation of competing emissions that overwhelmed the market — a period Brazilians came to call the Encilhamento, a speculative frenzy that collapsed spectacularly by 1891. This note was issued right at the peak of that bubble.

ABNC supplied plates for dozens of Brazilian regional institutions during this period, and the quality of their engraving stands in sharp contrast to the fiscal chaos these notes helped produce. The Banco Emissor do Norte itself had a short operational life before the federal government moved to consolidate currency authority.