5 Pesos

The Banco Español de Puerto Rico was established by royal decree in 1888 as the island's first bank of issue, operating under Spanish colonial authority in the final decade before the 1898 transfer of Puerto Rico to the United States. This note falls within the bank's earliest printing contracts, placed with the American Bank Note Company — a telling choice, given that a New York firm was engaged to produce currency for a Spanish colonial institution at a moment of considerable tension between Spain and the United States over Caribbean sovereignty.

The bank survived the 1898 transition only briefly, reorganizing as the Banco de Puerto Rico in 1901. Notes of this series were redeemed and destroyed in quantity, keeping genuine survivors scarce.