5 Pesos El Banco de Londres y Mexico

El Banco de Londres y México was the oldest commercial bank in Mexico, founded in 1864 as a branch of the London Bank of Mexico and South America. It was one of only a handful of institutions authorized to issue currency under the 1884 Commercial Code and the subsequent 1897 Ley General de Instituciones de Crédito, which strictly limited note-issuing rights — making its paper among the most legitimate in circulation during the Porfiriato.

The American Bank Note Company held the contract across the full run of this series, a span long enough that plate wear and incremental design tweaks produced subtle but documentable differences between early and late printings.