Catalog
50 Centavos
| Issuer | Banco de Cartagena |
|---|---|
| Year | 1882 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | EL BANCO DE CARTAGENA Pagará al portador, a la vista, en su oficina la suma de CINCUENTA CENTAVOS en moneda legal i corriente Cartagena, 1° de Enero de 1882 El Director Gerente El Cajero 50 |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in blue-grey on plain paper, centered on an elaborate symmetrical guilloche composition of interlocking rosettes and lathe-work ornaments surrounding the large numeral 50 at center. A continuous decorative border of fine engine-turned patterns frames the entire face, with additional text running along the outer margins. Two cancellation punch holes are visible through the center of the design. |
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| Comments |
The Banco de Cartagena was one of several private commercial banks licensed under Colombia's 1871 banking law, which allowed state-chartered institutions to issue their own notes — a decentralized arrangement that persisted until the Banco de la República absorbed these privileges in the early twentieth century. Small-denomination fractional notes like this 50 Centavos were typically produced locally rather than sent abroad to established security printers, which accounts for the Cartagena imprint and for the comparatively modest production quality seen across the series.
Surviving examples are genuinely rare; low-denomination circulating paper from provincial Colombian banks of this period was used hard and seldom preserved.