Catalog
10 Venezolanos
| Issuer | Compañía de Crédito |
|---|---|
| Year | 1873 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is dominated by the bold heading COMPAÑÍA DE CRÉDITO at the top, flanked by the word DIEZ in the upper corners. Two large ornate guilloche medallions bearing the numeral 10 are positioned at the left and right, with a central vignette of the Venezuelan coat of arms above the denomination text DIEZ VENEZOLANOS. Handwritten spaces for the place and date of issue appear below the heading, with two signature lines at the bottom for the Director and Administrator. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | COMPAÑÍA DE CRÉDITO DIEZ Caracas, de 18 Vale Por DIEZ VENEZOLANOS que se pagarán al portador en Caracas á la presentación Por la Dirección El Administrador |
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| Comments |
The Compañía de Crédito was one of several private Venezuelan banking institutions chartered in the early 1870s under legislation that briefly opened the country to commercial banking after decades of government monopoly. It did not survive long — Venezuelan private banking of this period was chronically undercapitalized, and most of these institutions collapsed or lost their issuing privileges before the end of the decade.
ABNC produced the plates in New York, as they did for the majority of Latin American private bank issues of the period. The S-prefix Pick reference signals unissued or specimen status in most surviving examples, which raises the real question of how much actual paper from this series ever reached circulation at all.