The 20 Pesos banknote issued by the Comisión Reguladora del Mercado de Henequén, bearing the printed date of November 20, 1914, represents a profound intersection of agricultural economics, military logistics, and regional sovereignty during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). To understand the issuance of this fiat currency, one must examine the collapse of the centralized Mexican monetary system. Following the ouster of President Porfirio Díaz and the subsequent assassination of Francisco I. Madero, the nation devolved into a fractured landscape controlled by competing military warlords. The federal banking apparatus ceased to function effectively, and hard metallic currency (gold and silver coinage) vanished from circulation due to extreme hoarding by a panicked public, a classic manifestation of Gresham’s Law.

Faced with a total absence ...