50 Escudos

The Banco de España's 1868 escudo notes were issued during one of the most turbulent stretches of nineteenth-century Spanish political history — the Glorious Revolution of September 1868 had just deposed Isabella II, and the provisional government inherited a treasury in poor shape. The escudo itself had replaced the real in 1864 but would survive only until 1871, when the peseta system was adopted. That gives the entire escudo series a lifespan of barely seven years.

This 50 Escudos note thus belongs to a denomination that existed for a genuinely short window, issued by an institution scrambling to maintain credibility during a regency government that couldn't agree on who should be king.