100 Pesos

The Banco Español de la Habana occupied an unusual position: it functioned as both a commercial institution and, effectively, the colonial treasury's instrument in Cuba, operating under Spanish authority during a period when the island was locked in the Ten Years' War — the first major independence conflict, which ran from 1868 to 1878. Financing the Spanish military presence in Cuba while simultaneously maintaining public confidence in paper currency was a genuine contradiction, and it showed in how cautiously these higher denominations were managed.

The American Bank Note Company handled this series from New York, a routine arrangement for Latin American and Caribbean issuers of the period who wanted intaglio security printing beyond what local facilities could provide. ABNC's involvement does not automatically indicate quality survival rates — Cuban colonial notes at this denomination were redeemed aggressively after the monetary reorganizations that followed the Zanjón peace settlement in 1878.