Catalog
50 Pesos
| Issuer | El Tesoro de la Isla de Cuba |
|---|---|
| Year | 1891 |
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| Currency | Pre-Republic (1870-1898) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | el TESORO de la ISLA de CUBA PAGARÁ AL PORTADOR CINCUENTA PESOS (unreadable text) HABANA, 12 de Agosto de 1891 (Translation: The Treasury of the Cuba island will pay to the bearer Fifty Pesos (unreadable text) Havana, August 12th., 1891) |
| Reverse description | Athena figures appear on both lateral panels, framing a central denomination numeral. The face value is repeated in numerals at all four corners, with the full denomination in letters along the bottom border and the issuer's title inscribed across the top. Fine guilloche lacework forms the background underprint throughout. |
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| Comments |
By 1891, Cuba remained a Spanish colony in the final years of a deeply strained relationship with Madrid — the Ten Years' War had ended in 1878 without independence, and the island's financial administration was a patchwork of competing obligations and debt. The Tesoro de la Isla de Cuba was essentially a colonial treasury instrument, not an independent central bank, and these notes circulated under the fiscal authority of the Spanish crown rather than any Cuban institution with autonomous standing.
Bradbury Wilkinson's involvement places the printing firmly in London, which was unremarkable for Spanish colonial issues of this period — the peninsula's own printing infrastructure was rarely trusted for high-denomination colonial paper. The 1891 series preceded the catastrophic 1895–98 war by only a few years, and much of this issue was effectively rendered obsolete by the currency chaos that followed Cuban independence in 1898.