5 Bolivianos

Banco Nacional de Bolivia was a private commercial institution operating under government concession, not a state central bank — a distinction that mattered enormously when Bolivia's banking law of 1890 had already granted it note-issuing privileges that survived well into the early twentieth century. Bradbury Wilkinson, working from their New Malden facility, supplied a significant portion of Latin American currency during this period and brought consistent intaglio quality to clients who lacked domestic printing capacity.

Bolivia's monetary situation in 1904 remained tangled in the aftermath of the War of the Pacific, which had stripped the country of its Pacific coastline and the nitrate revenues that went with it. Demand for circulating notes in the interior was real, but confidence in privately issued paper was uneven at best.