5 Pesos

The Compañía de Accionistas was a short-lived Venezuelan banking venture operating under a government concession in the mid-1850s, issuing notes that circulated in a country with no formal central banking structure and chronic coin shortages. Provincial merchant banks and shareholding companies filled that gap by necessity.

Printed locally in Caracas rather than sent abroad to established security printers — unusual for the period, when most Latin American issuers relied on firms in London or New York — which raises genuine questions about engraving quality and counterfeit resistance that plagued the note during its circulation life.