Catalog
5 Pesos
| Issuer | Tesorería General de la República de Colombia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1888 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black on white unface note with ornate letterpress typeset design. Upper left bears a large numeral '5' within a guilloche roundel; upper right carries a vignette of a steam locomotive. The central text panel states the obligation under Ley 95 de 1888, with signature lines for El Ministro del Tesoro and El Tesorero General at foot. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed entirely in blue, the reverse presents two large interlocking guilloche medallions with intricate lathe-work rosettes, flanking a blank central rectangle reserved for overprint or validation. A delicate scalloped border frames the whole composition. |
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| Comments |
The Tesorería General issues of the 1880s were printed domestically at a time when most Latin American governments were still dependent on foreign firms — particularly American Bank Note Company and its rivals. Villaveces was one of the few Colombian printing houses capable of producing government paper currency in this period, which makes this note an artifact of deliberate economic self-sufficiency during a decade when the Regeneración government under Rafael Núñez was actively centralizing state functions and attempting to stabilize a chronically fractured monetary system.
The 1886 constitution and subsequent banking reforms directly preceded this issue. Núñez's government established the Banco Nacional de Colombia that same year and granted it a paper-money monopoly, yet Tesorería notes continued to appear alongside it — a contradiction that reflected how slowly the new financial architecture actually took hold in practice.