Catalog
10 Bolívares
| Issuer | Banco Mercantil y Agrícola |
|---|---|
| Year | 1934 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Red intaglio print on cream paper. The central vignette presents a pastoral cattle scene with drovers and livestock set within an oval guilloche frame. The bank title BANCO MERCANTIL Y AGRICOLA arches across the top border, with the denomination numeral 10 repeated in the four corners and the legend DIEZ BOLÍVARES at the foot of the central panel; serial numbers appear at upper left and upper right, with one manuscript signature at lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Uniformly printed in red on cream paper by the American Bank Note Company. The central motif consists of a circular monogram medallion of the bank flanked symmetrically by two classical allegorical female figures in reclining poses, each resting against the denomination numeral 10. The bank name BANCO MERCANTIL Y AGRICOLA and place name CARACAS, VENEZUELA are inscribed along the lower margin, with DIEZ BOLÍVARES repeated twice across the top. |
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| Comments |
The Banco Mercantil y Agrícola was a Caracas-based private institution, and its banknotes from this period circulated alongside those of several competing banks before Venezuela's central banking law of 1939 consolidated note-issuing authority under the Banco Central de Venezuela. This 1934 note predates that consolidation by five years — it was still legal for private commercial banks to issue their own currency, a situation increasingly out of step with the monetary centralization happening across Latin America at the time.
ABNC supplied plates to numerous Venezuelan private banks during the 1920s and 1930s, and the series to which this belongs was among the last produced before regulatory changes made such commissions obsolete.