200 Mil Reis

The Banco do Brazil — reconstituted in 1853 after the original bank's collapse in 1829 — issued this note during the turbulent early months of the First Brazilian Republic, proclaimed in November 1889. The timing matters: 1890 was the opening year of the Encilhamento, a speculative financial boom deliberately engineered by Finance Minister Rui Barbosa through aggressive monetary expansion. Credit flooded the market, new banks were chartered almost weekly, and the demand for printed currency outpaced any reasonable reserve backing.

The American Bank Note Company in New York had handled Brazilian government printing contracts for decades by this point, making them the default supplier when volumes surged.