500 Reales de Vellón Banco de Bilbao

The Banco de Bilbao received its royal charter in 1857, making this 500 Reales de Vellón one of the earliest — possibly inaugural — issues from that institution. Spain's provincial banking law of 1856 had authorized individual commercial banks across the peninsula to issue their own notes, a decentralized arrangement that lasted only until the Bank of Spain's monopoly was enforced through the 1874 decree. That left the entire Bilbao private issue series with a circulation window of under two decades.

The reales de vellón denomination itself was already being phased out in favor of the escudo by 1864, which compresses this note's active life further still.