10 Pesos

Chile's fiscal situation in the early twentieth century was shaped largely by nitrate export revenues, and the peso's purchasing power fluctuated considerably across this period. The Caja de Conversión, established in 1895 to peg the peso to gold, had already collapsed by 1898, leaving the currency effectively inconvertible for most of this note's issuing life. What reached the public was paper with no guaranteed metallic backing.

The American Bank Note Company held a near-monopoly on Chilean government printing work during this period, producing notes for multiple overlapping series simultaneously. Pick 21 runs across thirteen years, which typically points to periodic reorders rather than a single print run — plate wear and minor typographic differences between early and late examples are worth examining closely.