500 Bolívares

The Banco de Maracaibo was a regional commercial bank based in Venezuela's oil-booming northwest, not a central bank — its notes circulated as private banknotes backed by the institution's own reserves at a time when Venezuela had no central bank at all. The Banco Central de Venezuela would not exist until 1940. This 500 Bolívares note is therefore a high-denomination instrument from a transitional monetary moment, when regional private banks still competed to supply currency to a rapidly industrializing economy.

ABNC's work for Venezuelan regional issuers in this period is consistent and technically accomplished. The 1925–1926 dating window is narrow, and surviving high-denomination examples are genuinely uncommon — large notes from private Venezuelan banks were rarely held long by the public and often returned to the issuer.