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20 Pesos Moneda Boliviano
| Issuer | Banco J. Benites é Hijo |
|---|---|
| Year | 1867 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 20 Pesos Boliviano |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on white paper with green guilloche underprint. The central vignette presents a portrait of a young woman with flowers in her hair, holding a letter, set within an oval frame. Two allegorical female figures flank the central vignette — one to the left reclining with a scroll, the other to the right resting beside an anchor — with denomination numerals "20" in green guilloche ovals at either side and the bank name arched across the top. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | EL BANCO J. BENITES É HIJO 20 |
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| Comments |
Banco J. Benites é Hijo was a private commercial bank operating in Bolivia during the brief but chaotic window between independence-era monetary experimentation and the later state banking reforms. The 1867 date places this note squarely in a period when private bank issuance in Bolivia was largely unregulated, and the "Moneda Boliviano" denomination — pegged conceptually to the boliviano rather than the older peso fuerte — reflects the transitional currency nomenclature of the 1860s.
American Bank Note Company's involvement is typical of South American private banking paper from this period; Bolivian institutions routinely contracted New York engravers because no comparable security printing infrastructure existed domestically. The PS prefix in the Pick catalogue indicates this is classified as a private or provisional issue, and surviving examples are genuinely rare — Benites é Hijo's operational lifespan was short, and redemption or destruction of remaining stock would have been thorough.