5 Colones

By 1990, El Salvador was deep into a civil war that had been grinding since 1979, and the Banco Central de Reserva was under real pressure to maintain a functioning money supply despite significant economic disruption. Thomas De La Rue's London operation had been printing Salvadoran notes for decades by this point, a relationship that kept production offshore and largely insulated from the domestic instability.

The P#138 is the last major type for this denomination before the series was superseded. Watermark-only security was already considered minimal by 1990 standards.