50 Bolívares

Banco de Venezuela was established in 1890 as a private commercial institution, and by the late 1890s it held a dominant position among the several competing note-issuing banks operating under Venezuelan law — a plural system that persisted until the Banco Central de Venezuela's creation in 1940. This 50 Bolívares note predates the political turbulence of Cipriano Castro's rise to power in 1899, which brought years of financial instability and eventually forced a fundamental rethinking of private bank privileges.

The American Bank Note Company's involvement was typical for elite South American issuers of this period seeking security printing that domestic facilities could not yet match. Notes from this 1897 series are genuinely scarce today.