50 Centavos

The Banco Popular de Medellín was one of several regional Colombian banks empowered to issue currency under the 1880s-era free banking legislation — a deliberately decentralized system that allowed provincial banks to circulate their own notes backed by specie reserves. The ABNCo contract for this issue was typical of Colombian regional banks of the period, which consistently turned to New York engravers rather than European houses, partly for cost and partly for the established commercial relationships Colombian merchants maintained with North American counterparts.

Fractional centavo notes from Colombian provincial issuers are disproportionately scarce today — small denominations circulated hard and were rarely set aside.