Catalog
10 Pesos
| Issuer | Banco Español de la Habana |
|---|---|
| Year | 1869-1871 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 205 × 135 mm |
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| Obverse description | Printed in black and blue-green, 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. Surrounding vignettes illustrate the agricultural wealth of Cuba: a tobacco plant, royal palm trees, a sugar mill with smokestacks, and oxen hauling a cart laden with sugar cane. Denomination numerals appear at the corners, with the issuing bank title and payment obligation text occupying the central inscription panel. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | Es inutil |
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| Comments |
The Banco Español de la Habana occupied an awkward position in colonial Cuba — nominally a private institution, it functioned as the crown's financial instrument on the island, and its notes circulated under the persistent shadow of Spanish fiscal mismanagement. The 1869–1871 dating bracket places this note squarely within the Ten Years' War, Cuba's first major independence uprising, which wrecked trade, disrupted sugar revenues, and strained confidence in paper currency across the island.
ABNC held the printing contract throughout this period, producing notes of characteristically high engraving quality at their New York facilities — a political irony not lost on Cuban insurgents that the colony's money was manufactured in the United States.