10 Soles

The Compañía de Obras Públicas y Fomento del Perú was a private infrastructure concession company, not a bank — yet it issued circulating paper currency in the 1870s under arrangements with the Peruvian government that blurred those lines considerably. The company held concessions for major public works including railway construction, and these notes were tied directly to that financing structure rather than to any conventional banking reserve.

Peru's broader monetary situation in 1876 was deteriorating rapidly, with the country overextended on guano-backed debt. Private quasi-banking paper like this filled gaps left by an increasingly strained official system. The War of the Pacific was still three years away, but the fiscal pressures that would make that war so catastrophic were already visible.