500 Bolívares

Banco de Venezuela was a private commercial bank operating under government concession, not a central bank — Venezuela had no central bank until 1940. Notes like this one circulated as quasi-official currency because the government lacked any alternative mechanism for large-denomination paper. At 500 Bolívares, this was a high-value instrument, almost certainly used for commercial settlements rather than retail trade.

American Bank Note Company produced the plates in New York, as they did for much of Latin American paper currency in this period. The 1921 date places it squarely in the early oil boom years, when foreign concession payments were reshaping the Venezuelan economy at exactly the scale this denomination was built to handle.