5 Pesos Machete attack

The "machete attack" designation refers to a form of political vandalism unique to this note: anti-Batista activists slashed banknotes with razor blades or machetes, rendering them unfit for circulation while making a pointed statement. The practice was widespread enough during the revolutionary period that damaged examples are genuinely common, and undamaged survivors from active circulation are harder to find than the condition would suggest.

De La Rue printed this series in London just as the Batista government was collapsing. Notes dated 1960 were issued under the revolutionary government, making this a transitional type — same plates, different political reality on either side of January 1959.