Currency of Colombia that the bank no longer existed). The period 1899–1903 witnessed revolution, civil war (the Thousand Days War of 1899–1902), inflation, and depreciation. There were numerous note issues of various kinds. Then calm slowly returned. A law of 25 October 1903 prohibited new paper money issues, permitted payment in gold to be stipulated in contracts, and reintroduced the gold peso ("peso oro"), equal to 100 paper pesos, effective 1 January 1904. Outstanding notes were absorbed by auction sales of gold. "El Banco Nacional de la República de Colombia" issued notes in 1886 for 50 centavos and 1, 5, and 10 pesos.
World currency Habsburg territories. Prior to and during most of the 19th century, international trade was denominated in terms of currencies that represented weights of gold. Most national currencies at the time were in essence merely different ways of measuring gold weights (much as the yard and the meter both measure length and are related by a constant conversion factor). Hence some assert that gold was the world's first global currency. The emerging collapse of the international gold standard around the time of World War I had significant implications for global trade. Before 1944, the world reference currency was the United Kingdom's