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100 Bolívares
| Issuer | Banco Caracas |
|---|---|
| Year | 1926-1928 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Bolívar (1879-1983) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed in olive-brown on cream paper. A central allegorical vignette depicts a seated female figure representing Commerce or the Republic, surrounded by fine guilloche lathe-work and ornate geometric borderwork. At left, a large '100' numeral is set within an intricate oval guilloche panel, mirrored by a decorative diamond-shaped panel at right containing the denomination numerals. The circular legend 'BANCO CARACAS COMPAÑIA ANONIMA' and 'CAPITAL Bs 6.000.000' runs around the central vignette, with 'CIEN BOLIVARES' inscribed at top and bottom margins. |
| Reverse lettering | BANCO CARACAS COMPAÑIA ANONIMA CAPITAL Bs 6.000.000 CIEN BOLIVARES 100 |
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| Comments |
Banco Caracas was a private commercial bank, not a central bank, and its authority to issue notes stemmed from a Venezuelan banking law that permitted chartered institutions to circulate currency well into the twentieth century. By the mid-1920s, that system was already under pressure — the Banco Central de Venezuela would eventually consolidate and terminate private note issue, though that came later, in 1940.
The American Bank Note Company imprint on a Venezuelan private bank note of this period is unsurprising; ABNC held a near-monopoly on South American commercial printing work throughout the 1920s. What makes this denomination worth noting is that 100 bolívares represented serious purchasing power in 1926–28 Venezuela, a country then being rapidly transformed by oil revenues from the Maracaibo fields — meaning notes like this circulated among a very specific commercial class, not the general population.