Catalog
5 Córdobas
| Issuer | Banco Nacional de Nicaragua |
|---|---|
| Year | 1935 |
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| Printer | Hamilton Bank Note Company (HBNC), New York, United States |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on light-green and red guilloche underprint. A central vignette presents a bust portrait of a young woman with flowing hair set within an ornate circular frame, flanked by numeral '5' counters on either side. The bank title appears across the top in two registers, with extensive legal text in Spanish distributed across the lower portion of the note and 'VALE POR CINCO CÓRDOBAS' in a bold cartouche at foot of the vignette. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Uniform brown intaglio print on plain paper. The Nicaraguan coat of arms — an equilateral triangle enclosing a landscape of volcanoes with a liberty cap and radiating sun — occupies the center, surrounded by the circular legend 'REPÚBLICA DE NICARAGUA · AMERICA CENTRAL'. Bold numeral '5' counters flank the arms on both sides, and the denomination cartouche 'CINCO CÓRDOBAS' appears in a scrollwork panel below, with the bank name in two registers across the top. |
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| Comments |
The Banco Nacional de Nicaragua was itself only a few years old when this note was printed — established in 1912 under American receivership during the U.S. occupation, it operated under significant foreign financial oversight well into the 1930s. The córdoba had replaced the peso in 1913, and the National Bank's early note series were products of that imposed monetary reorganization rather than sovereign initiative.
Hamilton Bank Note Company, a smaller New York security printer operating in the shadow of the dominant American Bank Note Company, handled several Central American contracts during this period. Their work on Nicaraguan issues is occasionally found with light plate wear in the fine-line border work — a known characteristic of HBNC production, not post-issue handling.