2 Pesos

Colombia's paper currency in the early 1900s was issued under severe fiscal strain following the Thousand Days War (1899–1902), one of the bloodiest civil conflicts in the country's history. The government emerged from it with a shattered economy and a currency system so inflated that denominations had ballooned grotesquely — which makes a modest 2 Peso note from 1904 something of a transitional artifact, issued during the slow, painful attempt to restore monetary order before the Banco de la República was even a decade away from existing.

Waterlow & Sons handled much of Latin America's security printing at this period, and their involvement here signals that Colombia was sourcing credibility abroad when domestic institutions couldn't supply it.