Catalog
1 Bolívar
| Issuer | Venezuela |
|---|---|
| Year | 1879-1936 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A bare-headed, draped bust of Simón Bolívar faces left, rendered in high relief with finely engraved wavy hair, after a design by Désiré-Albert Barre. The legend BOLÍVAR is inscribed to the left of the bust and LIBERTADOR to the right, both curving along the inner periphery. The engraver's name BARRE appears incuse at the base of the truncation. The reverse is framed by a milled border consistent with the obverse. |
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| Mint | Caracas, Venezuela Monnaie de Paris, Paris (and Pessac starting 1973), France Royal Mint of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium United States Mint, Philadelphia, United States |
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| Additional information |
Venezuela's 1 Bolívar type was introduced as part of the country's adoption of the Latin Monetary Union standard, aligning its coinage metrically with France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. The decision was largely driven by Antonio Guzmán Blanco, the strongman who dominated Venezuelan politics through the 1870s and 1880s and who aggressively modernized the country's financial infrastructure — often contracting European mints, including Paris, to strike the issues.
The type survived remarkably intact through nearly six decades and multiple regimes, a span that included the brutal caudillo rule of Juan Vicente Gómez, whose 27-year grip on power ended only with his death in 1935.