Catalog
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| Issuer | República de Colombia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1904 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Peso (1826-1985) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | REPÚBLICA DE COLOMBIA Billete por valor de VEINTICINCO PESOS Amortizable conforme a las Leyes BOGOTA, Abril de 1904 EL MINISTRO DEL TESORO EL TESORERO GENERAL DE LA REPÚBLICA |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | EN EL PAGO DE LA JUNTA NACIONAL DE AMORTIZACIÓN Waterlow & Sons Lt. Londres, Inglaterra |
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| Comments |
Colombia's 1904 issues came at a painful moment — the country had just emerged from the Thousand Days War (1899–1902), one of the bloodiest civil conflicts in its history, and the peso itself had been catastrophically debased. At the war's peak, the government was printing unbacked paper currency in quantities that drove inflation into the thousands of percent. The Waterlow & Sons contract represented an attempt to restore credibility through externally produced, security-printed notes after years of domestic emergency issues.
Waterlow had been printing for Latin American governments since the mid-nineteenth century and was a natural choice for a republic trying to signal fiscal rehabilitation to foreign creditors. Whether it succeeded is another matter — Colombia's monetary situation remained unstable well into the following decade.