5 Bolivianos

Banco Agrícola was one of several regionally chartered Bolivian banks authorized to issue their own notes under the 1890 banking law, before the Bolivian government finally centralized note-issuing authority and liquidated the private banks of emission in the early 1910s. This 5 Bolivianos belongs to that narrow window when agricultural credit institutions could print their own currency — a practical arrangement in a country where the altiplano economy ran largely on barter and silver coin, and paper had limited reach outside the main commercial centers.

Bradbury Wilkinson handled a substantial share of Latin American provincial bank printing at this period. Their cotton substrate was notoriously durable, which is partly why examples from this series survive in better shape than their actual circulation history would suggest.