20 Pesos

Banco de Valparaiso was one of Chile's major private issuing banks during the era of free banking that preceded the 1925 nationalization of currency under the Banco Central. The American Bank Note Company produced this note during a period when virtually every significant Latin American bank of issue sourced its paper currency from either ABNC or its chief rival, the British American Bank Note Company — but Chilean commercial banks showed a strong and consistent preference for the New York firm throughout the 1870s.

The P#490 designation places this within a well-documented ABNC series for Valparaiso, a port city whose banking sector was sufficiently capitalized by copper and nitrate trade to sustain multiple private banks of issue simultaneously.