20 Pesos

The Tesoro Nacional — Colombia's national treasury, functioning as a quasi-central bank before the Banco de la República was established in 1923 — issued this note during a period of chronic monetary disorder. Colombia had suffered through civil war, the War of a Thousand Days ending only in 1902, and its paper money circulated at ruinous discounts against specie for years afterward. By 1921, the treasury was still managing a fragmented currency system that the new bank would eventually consolidate.

Litografía Nacional in Bogotá was a domestic printer, and the limitations of local lithographic production at the time are occasionally visible in surviving examples — registration inconsistencies and uneven ink density are known to occur across the series.