500 pesos

Mexico's Banco de México issued this denomination at a moment of acute monetary stress. The 1994 peso crisis — the "tequila crisis" — forced a dramatic devaluation that began in December of that year, and the peso lost roughly half its value against the dollar within weeks. Notes in higher denominations were suddenly necessary for routine transactions that smaller bills had previously handled with ease, which accelerated the introduction and circulation of this series.

P#110 belongs to the "D Series," which ran through the late 1990s on cotton substrate before the shift toward polymer issues in subsequent families. The watermark security on this series was considered adequate at issue but drew criticism from the Banco de México's own technical committees by the end of the decade — a factor in the accelerated redesign program that followed.