50 Pesos

The Banco Nacional de la República de Colombia was a state-owned institution established in 1880 under President Rafael Núñez, explicitly to wrest monetary control away from the private banks that had dominated Colombian finance since the 1860s. Its creation was contested from the start — private bankers lobbied hard against it, and several regional banks continued issuing competing notes well into the decade.

American Bank Note Company printed the series in New York, a standard arrangement for Latin American governments that lacked domestic intaglio facilities capable of producing secure currency. The 1888 dating places this note squarely in the period before Colombia's catastrophic 1885–1886 currency inflation, after which public trust in Banco Nacional paper collapsed almost entirely and forced a series of emission reforms.