5 Pesos

Cuba's 1869 peso notes were issued under Spanish colonial administration during the Ten Years' War — the first and longest of Cuba's independence conflicts. The Spanish authorities issued paper currency partly to finance military operations against insurgent forces, and these notes circulated under considerable political duress in a colony already economically destabilized by the conflict.

Pick 56 is among the earliest catalogued Cuban issues, making surviving examples genuinely scarce. The war ended in 1878 with the Pact of Zanjón, after which currency arrangements were reorganized substantially.