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8 Reales

Issuer Banco de Venezuela
Year 1862
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Composition Cotton paper
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Obverse lettering BANCO DE VENEZUELA
Emision de la Junta de Recursos.
Acuerdo de 24 de Febrero de 1862.
Serie L N° Emision de $300.000. Serie L N°
8 Reales
Vale por un peso sencillo.
Admisible en todas las oficinas nacionales y municipales.
Caracas, 1° Marzo de 1862.
El Gobernador, Presidente de la Junta:
Los Administradores del Ramo de Emision:
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Signature(s) Miguel Mujica (Gobernador-Presidente de la Junta) and Castiño and Arroame (Administradores del Ramo de Emision)
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Banco de Venezuela was granted its charter in 1861, making this 1862 note among the very earliest emissions of the republic's first formally chartered commercial bank. The 8 reales denomination is a telling detail — Venezuela was still operating on the colonial real system at this point, nearly four decades after independence, and would not fully convert to the decimal bolívar until 1879.

Three manuscript signatures authenticate each note individually, an arrangement that reflects the bank's administrative structure under a governing junta rather than a conventional directorate. The signature of the Gobernador-Presidente alongside two Administradores del Ramo de Emisión was the control mechanism, not mere formality.

Survival rate for this issue is extremely low — the bank itself suspended operations within a few years amid Venezuela's chronic political instability of the 1860s.