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5 Pesos
| Issuer | Banco Nacional de los Estados Unidos de Colombia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1881 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on green guilloche underprint. At left, a seated allegorical female figure; at center, a vignette of a man in military uniform; the national Coat of Arms appears at right. The issuing bank name, denomination, and place and date of issue are set in letterpress across the face, with the printer's imprint of the American Bank Note Co., New York, at the lower margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed entirely in green. The centre of the note is occupied by the issuing bank's name in large bold lettering across a finely engraved guilloche background, flanked on each side by a large numeral "5" set within an elaborate lathe-work rosette. A dense engine-turned border with Greek-key corner ornaments frames the entire design, and the printer's imprint appears at the lower centre margin. |
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| Comments |
The Banco Nacional de los Estados Unidos de Colombia was established in 1880 as the country's first government bank, replacing the chaotic patchwork of private regional banks that had dominated Colombian finance since independence. This 1881 note belongs to the institution's earliest emission, produced just months after the bank opened its doors in Bogotá.
ABNC's involvement was typical for Latin American sovereign issuers of the period seeking to project fiscal credibility through high-quality intaglio work from a recognized North American firm. The Colombian federal structure — the "Estados Unidos" formulation — would itself collapse within a decade, replaced by the centralized República de Colombia under the 1886 constitution, making notes bearing this issuer name intrinsically short-lived in circulation.