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50 Pesos Fuertes Banco de Barcelona
| Issuer | Banco de Barcelona |
|---|---|
| Year | 1868 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is framed by an elaborate guilloche border with denomination numerals at each corner. To the left, an oval vignette contains an allegorical crowned female figure holding a staff and resting on a shield bearing the arms of Spain and its kingdoms; to the right, a companion oval vignette presents a crowned female figure with a caduceus beside the shield of Barcelona. The central field carries the bank title, promise-to-pay text, and denomination in letterpress. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 50 BANCO DE BARCELONA Pagaderos a la vista al portador CINCUENTA pesos fuertes Barcelona, ... de ... de 18... (Translation: Bank of Barcelona Payable at sight to bearer Fifty Pesos Fuertes) |
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| Comments |
The Banco de Barcelona was Spain's oldest joint-stock bank of issue, founded in 1844, and by 1868 it was operating under the increasingly fractured regulatory climate that preceded the Glorious Revolution of September that year. The overthrow of Isabella II in that same year created immediate uncertainty for provincial banks of issue across Spain, and many notes printed in this period circulated in conditions of acute public distrust.
The "Pesos Fuertes" denomination — essentially a Spanish hard dollar unit — places this note in the transitional period before the peseta system was imposed nationally in 1868–69. Barcelona's commercial banking culture was among the most sophisticated on the peninsula, but the bank itself was eventually wound down following the 1874 Echegaray decree that handed monopoly of issue to the Banco de España.
Pick S244 is genuinely scarce in any condition.