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50 Bolívares
| Issuer | Banco de Venezuela |
|---|---|
| Year | 1897 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 50 Bolívares |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in green and black on white paper, with the bank title BANCO DE VENEZUELA in large bold lettering at upper left within a decorated cartouche. A central vignette to the right illustrates a llanero on horseback roping a bull in an open savanna landscape, rendered in fine intaglio. The denomination numeral appears in guilloche-bordered counters at each corner, with the place of issue CARACAS and date formula printed in the lower centre panel. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in green, with an elaborate guilloche border composed of interlocking floral and geometric lathe-work patterns filling the entire field. A large central vignette carries the Venezuelan national coat of arms within a circular frame, surmounted by the legend BANCO DE and flanked by the denomination numerals in ornate counters at left and right. The imprint of the American Bank Note Company, New York appears in small lettering at the bottom centre. |
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| Comments |
Banco de Venezuela was established in 1890 as a private commercial institution, and by the late 1890s it held a dominant position among the several competing note-issuing banks operating under Venezuelan law — a plural system that persisted until the Banco Central de Venezuela's creation in 1940. This 50 Bolívares note predates the political turbulence of Cipriano Castro's rise to power in 1899, which brought years of financial instability and eventually forced a fundamental rethinking of private bank privileges.
The American Bank Note Company's involvement was typical for elite South American issuers of this period seeking security printing that domestic facilities could not yet match. Notes from this 1897 series are genuinely scarce today.