As a Province of Spain (Autonomous Community) and a territory of the United States, Puerto Rico was granted the use of both foreign and provincial currencies.

The Spanish Crown issued the Situado Mexicano, which meant that a semi-regular shipment of gold from the Viceroyalty of New Spain would be sent to the island, as a way to provide economic support.

Salvador Meléndez Bruna, the colonial governor in office, ordered the issue of provincial banknotes, creating the Puerto Rican peso.

The peso and dollar have been followed by other contemporary issues, including commemorative banknotes, private currency, and a quarter coin designed with Fort San Felipe del Morro in the face.

After Juan Ponce de León began the colonization process of Puerto Rico, the archipelago became a strategic military location, used by Spain to protect its colonies and possessions in America.

[1] Beginning in the 16th century, the Spanish Crown was forced to issue a monetary support decree to the archipelago known as situado, which was supplied by the Royal banks in Central America, particularly Mexico.

Natural conditions and disasters also contributed, multiplying the costs of maintaining fortresses while hurricanes damaged haciendas, destroying crops and shortening the amount of laborers.

In due time, these documents would be short in supply upon their arrival, in such cases the government officials would stamp the current date into old papers.

[3] Pedro Tomás de Cordova and Humberto Burzio claim in their research that Puerto Rico was the first place in America to print 8-real, establishing 1766 as the date for this achievement.

[7] Mechanical printing had arrived to Puerto Rico years earlier, but up until 1813, part of the issued notes were being produced by hand and stamped.

[9] However, these security measures were ineffective against counterfeiting, eventually copies of several denominations were circulating in a widespread manner, forcing cities outside of San Juan, Arecibo and Loiza to discontinue their use.

The Diario Económico de Puerto Rico, a newspaper specialized in the archipelago's economy, noted that during the time banknotes of all denominations were still being forged in large quantities.

[12] The publication claimed that the counterfeits were most likely produced in other locations of the Caribbean, this was based on the fact that only one royal press existed in Puerto Rico.

[14] The negative perception created by the issue of paper money between 1813 and 1815, brought the production of banknotes to a halt, while only coins circulated in the archipelago.

Meanwhile, the Caja de Ahorros was founded in San Juan, a small bank, which provided an annual interest of up to 6% to its subscribers.

These bills were only printed in one side and were signed by members of the bank's board of directors, which was composed by eminent Puerto Rican citizens.

[18] Founded by José Francisco Basora, a Puerto Rican revolutionary and friend of Ramón Emeterio Betances, the group had connections within the wealthy sugar industry in the larger antille.

[20] During this decade, Charles Skipper and East produced 5-peso banknotes in England, which were circulated after receiving the signatures of Bosch y Puig and an unidentified associate.

Due to Spanish manufacture, the exchange notes issued for the macuquina featured a 12.5% discount, which left a significant deficit in the government's budget.

[26] Some years later, Ceredo Millán a commercial firm in San Juan obtained some of the now-obsolete Exchange Notes, which were converted into souvenirs and offered as gifts to their clients.

"Puerto Rico Mercantile Credit Company"), which was represented by Manuel Vicente Rodríguez, Enrique Vijande, Guillermo Mullenhoff, Pablo Ubarri Capetillo and José Caldas, with all of them serving as the group's directors.

[27] On May 5, 1888, a second royal decree was issue, officializing the creation of the Banco Español de Puerto Rico, which received a charter validity of 25 years.

[15] Series C (did not circulate under Spanish control) bills were issued with a release date of "May 1, 1900", some were over stamped with "Moneda Americana" (American money) in bold red letters.

[35] Series F ultimately entered circulation on July 1, 1909, still featuring bilingual captions and exhibiting a higher degree of technical quality.

The requirements for establishing a bank under this grant of authority, demanded that at least three-fourths of the board of directors lived in Puerto Rico at least for a year.

[39] It took the group two years to meet these regulations, but in 1902 the First National Bank of Porto Rico was inaugurated, with Andrés Crosas from San Juan serving as its president.

[45] The society is usually composed of 25 to 50 members and it focuses in collecting and distributing both coins and banknotes from Puerto Rico to interested collectors.

The designs of all banknotes feature Pedro Albizu Campos in the front side while the reverses are adorned with the flags of Puerto Rico, Jayuya and the Nationalist Party.

[49] After an intervention with parent company Liberty Services concluded with its assets being confiscated, leading to a process that resulted in the indictment and conviction of founder Bernard von NotHaus, Pacheco Martínez continued to circulate the coins under the name of Dólar Boricua.

[52] The design on these coins was expected to feature the same George Washington image found in the obverse of the original issues, while the reverse would depict illustrations of something characteristic to that location.