5 Pesos El Banco de Durango

El Banco de Durango was one of the regional banks operating under the 1897 Ley General de Instituciones de Crédito, which gave state-chartered banks the right to issue currency alongside the larger nacional institutions. By 1914, that system had effectively collapsed — the Revolution had fragmented monetary authority, and regional bank notes were being refused, hoarded, or counterfeited across the country. A 1914-dated Durango issue was circulating in a state that had seen significant Villista activity, which created practical problems for any paper currency not backed by force of arms.

Bouligny & Schmidt were among the more active commercial printers supplying Mexican banking clients in the Porfirian period. Their involvement here is a reminder that Mexico's pre-revolutionary banking notes were domestically produced, not sent abroad to Bradbury Wilkinson or American Bank Note as the larger federal issues often were.