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500 Pesos
| Issuer | Banco Español de la Habana |
|---|---|
| Year | 1869-1876 |
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| Currency | Pre-Republic (1870-1898) |
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| Obverse description | Printed in black and brown, the obverse carries a central vignette of a sailing vessel entering Havana harbor with the Morro Castle in the background, flanked by two seated allegorical female figures, one holding a cornucopia and the other a staff. Subsidiary vignettes include a tobacco plant, palm trees, a sugar mill with smokestacks, and cattle hauling a cart laden with sugar cane. Denomination panels and the issuing bank's title appear in letterpress within an ornate typographic border. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 500 EL BANCO ESPAÑOL DE LA HABANA á la presentación de este billete pagará al portador QUINIENTOS pesos fuertes en efectivo. Habana, 11 de Novbre de 1876. (Translation: The Spanish Bank of Havana Upon presentation of this note, the bearer will be paid Five Hundred Pesos Fuertes in cash. Havana, November 11, 1876.) |
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| Comments |
The Banco Español de la Habana occupied an unusual position: nominally a private institution, it functioned as the colonial government's fiscal agent in Cuba, and the high-denomination notes it issued in this period were tools of commercial credit rather than everyday exchange. Five hundred pesos circulated almost exclusively among merchants, sugar planters, and government contractors — ordinary Cubans rarely handled them.
The timing matters. These notes were produced across the opening years of the Ten Years' War, Cuba's first major independence uprising, when confidence in colonial financial institutions was under genuine strain. ABNC's engraved plates gave the series a solidity of appearance the political situation hardly warranted.