Catalog
500 Pesos
| Issuer | Banco Español de la Habana |
|---|---|
| Year | 1869-1876 |
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| Currency | Pre-Republic (1870-1898) |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 500 EL BANCO ESPAÑOL DE LA HABANA á la presentación de este billete pagará al portador QUINIENTOS pesos fuertes en efectivo. Habana, 11 de Novbre de 1876. (Translation: The Spanish Bank of Havana Upon presentation of this note, the bearer will be paid Five Hundred Pesos Fuertes in cash. Havana, November 11, 1876.) |
| Reverse description | The reverse is unprinted plain paper, bearing only contemporary manuscript annotations and a circular blue ink cancellation stamp reading "ISAAC RODRIGUEZ Y CA, PTO PRINCIPE" dated 27 ENE 1888, applied during circulation. |
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| Comments |
The Banco Español de la Habana occupied an unusual position: nominally a private institution, it functioned as the colonial government's fiscal agent in Cuba, and the high-denomination notes it issued in this period were tools of commercial credit rather than everyday exchange. Five hundred pesos circulated almost exclusively among merchants, sugar planters, and government contractors — ordinary Cubans rarely handled them.
The timing matters. These notes were produced across the opening years of the Ten Years' War, Cuba's first major independence uprising, when confidence in colonial financial institutions was under genuine strain. ABNC's engraved plates gave the series a solidity of appearance the political situation hardly warranted.