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| 100 Peruvian soles |
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| Peru - 100 Soles banknote |
Obverse: Peruvian Plantation Worker Tapping the Caoutchouc, or India-Rubber Tree.
Reverse: Jupiter Steam Locomotive.
Printed by American Bank Note Company, New York.
The name is a return to that of Peru's historic currency, the Sol in use from the 19th century to 1985. Although the derivation of Sol is the Latin solidus, the word also happens to mean sun in Spanish. There is a continuity therefore with the old Peruvian inti, which was named after Inti, the Sun God of the Incas.
The First Sol de Oro Bills
1933-1968
The sol de oro remained in circulation for over half a century, more than both the Peruvian pound (33 years) and the peso of the early republic (42 years). This room shows the first sol de oro bills, with denominations from one to 500, which circulated between the 1930s and the 1960s. The first issuances preserved the effigies from the Peruvian pound (the shepherdess and the rubber worker) to facilitate public acceptance of the new currency. In the 1950s the latter images were changed for the Sitting Liberty, represented by a woman surrounded by the symbols of the French revolution.
Between the 1940s and the 1960s, the highest denomination was 500 soles, exceeding by far the minimum wage (60 soles in 1950-1956). Once the problems created by the Great Depression had been left behind, in the 1930s Peru enjoyed an export boom based on cotton, sugar, copper, and oil. After WWII, fisheries and in particular fishmeal became important export items.