Catalog
20 Soles
| Issuer | Compañia de Obras Públicas y Fomento del Perú |
|---|---|
| Year | 1876 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | The obverse carries the full institutional title "La Compañia de Obras Públicas y Fomento del Perú" in bold curved lettering across the upper portion, flanking a dark oval vignette at right bearing the numeral "20". To the left, an allegorical female figure is seated in a classical pose, rendered in intaglio engraving, with the serial number appearing both below the vignette and at the right margin. The central text reads "Veinte Soles / EN MONEDA CORRIENTE" with the date "Lima, Julio 4 de 1876" and two manuscript signatures of the Director and Presidente below. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed on plain paper with a faint central oval guilloche underprint, largely unadorned and devoid of additional vignettes or inscriptions, consistent with the austere private-company note issues of the period. |
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The Compañía de Obras Públicas y Fomento del Perú was a private construction and development company granted note-issuing privileges by the Peruvian government as part of the broader guano-era financial arrangements — an unusual situation even by the loose standards of 19th-century Latin American quasi-banking. By 1876, Peru's public finances were already deteriorating badly following the collapse of guano revenues and the disastrous Dreyfus contract fallout, which made the circulating paper of concession companies increasingly unreliable.
Pick 447 is genuinely scarce. Few examples are documented in institutional collections.