500 Reales de Vellón Banco de España

The Banco de España's 1862 issues belong to the earliest phase of the bank's consolidation after the 1856 banking law that transformed the old Banco de Isabel II — absorbed in 1847 — into a properly constituted national institution. The reales de vellón as a unit of account were already on borrowed time; Spain decimalized its currency with the introduction of the escudo in 1864, making notes denominated in reales officially obsolete within two years of this note's printing.

Survival rates for this series are extremely low. The 500 reales denomination circulated among merchants and was subject to heavy wear, and the transition to escudo-denominated notes prompted aggressive withdrawal campaigns that destroyed most of the stock.