Catalog
5 Pesos
| Issuer | Administración de Hacienda y Crédito (Tesoro Nacional) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1853 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | The obverse presents a central upper vignette of two horses and a bull in a rustic pastoral scene, flanked on each side by a guilloche numeral '5' medallion. Vertical letterpress side panels read 'TESORO NACIONAL' and 'CREDITO PUBLICO' along the margins. The body of the note carries a manuscript authorization line reading 'Ley de...' followed by a handwritten date, and a printed text in Spanish acknowledging the note as redeemable for five pesos of one Castilian ounce of silver, issued by the Administración de Hacienda y Crédito, with two manuscript signatures at the foot. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | REPUBLICA ARGENTINA TESORO NACIONAL CREDITO PUBLICO Ley de La Confederacion Argentina reconoce este billete por cinco Pesos de una onza castellana de plata de diez dineros de ley cada una Por la Administracion de Hacienda y Credito |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Administración de Hacienda y Crédito operated as Colombia's national treasury authority during a period of profound fiscal instability following independence, when the government repeatedly turned to paper emissions to cover chronic shortfalls. PS#156 belongs to a series of treasury obligations — part note, part warrant — that blurred the line between circulating currency and short-term government debt instruments. These were not bank notes in the commercial sense; they were issued on the authority of the Tesoro Nacional itself, which made their acceptance in trade highly dependent on local confidence in the state's ability to redeem them.
Colombian treasury paper from this decade is genuinely scarce. Many emissions were recalled, mutilated, or simply disintegrated in a tropical climate that is particularly unforgiving to mid-19th-century paper stocks.