20 Pesos Oro

Colombia's Banco de la República was only five years old when this note was issued — established in 1923 under the recommendations of the Kemmerer Mission, an American economic advisory team brought in to modernize the country's monetary framework after decades of catastrophic inflationary episodes tied to earlier state-issued paper. The choice of Thomas De La Rue for printing reflected a deliberate policy of anchoring credibility through association with a printer whose name carried weight in international financial circles.

The "Oro" designation was not decorative — it signified convertibility into gold at a fixed rate, a commitment the bank maintained until the Depression-era pressures of the early 1930s forced suspension of the gold standard across most of Latin America.