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50 Bolívares
| Issuer | Banco de Maracaibo |
|---|---|
| Year | 1885 |
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| Currency | Bolívar (1879-1983) |
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| Obverse description | Printed in green intaglio on white cotton paper, the obverse bears the bank title BANCO DE MARACAIBO in bold lettering across the upper portion, with COMPAÑIA ANONIMA inscribed within a central oval guilloche underprint. The central vignette presents an allegorical agricultural scene with labouring figures, flanked by lateral vignettes of a standing male figure at left and a sailing vessel at right, all within ornate engine-turned lathe-work borders; denomination counters reading 50 occupy each corner, with CINCUENTA BOLIVARES in the lower register. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANCO DE MARACAIBO COMPAÑIA ANONIMA CAPITAL ES NEGOCIABLE MARACAIBO CINCUENTA BOLIVARES B50 50 |
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| Comments |
The Banco de Maracaibo was a regional commercial bank, not a national institution, and its authority to issue currency reflected Venezuela's fractured 19th-century banking framework — federal law permitted state-chartered banks to circulate their own notes well into the 1880s. ABNC handled the plates, as they did for dozens of Latin American issuers in this period, but the notes circulated in a port economy heavily dependent on coffee and cacao exports moving through Lake Maracaibo.
Surviving examples from this 1885 series are uncommon. Maracaibo's humid climate was punishing on paper, and regional Venezuelan private bank notes of this vintage were rarely preserved systematically.