Manzano Farming Co.

Who names it

Fernando Barriga del Diestro, in Credencial Historia no. 128 (August 2000), describes the private tokens of the War of a Thousand Days: notes or coin-like pieces that a shop, a mine, or an estate put into circulation when small change ran short. They passed among the issuer’s customers and, if someone asked, were exchanged at the cash desk for notes of the Banco Nacional.

Among the coin-shaped examples he names Grau & Cía. and the firm Manzano Farming Co., of Sotaquirá and Paipa. The Manuelita note-tokens of 1900 sit in the same paragraph, as paper. This page does not fold them together. The essay on hacienda tokens follows the commissary, La Amalia, and article 136 of the 1950 labor code. The subject here is this firm in Boyacá.

Barriga does not describe the die, does not give a diameter, and does not publish a catalog number. The sentence is enough to place the issuer. It is not enough for a piece record.

The 1901 piece Absoluti published

The Absoluti collection (CFMR) publishes a token of 25, dated 1901. The table does not say whether that 25 is centavos. This page does not supply a unit.

The same table gives bronze, a diameter of 28.5 mm, a thickness of 1.5 mm, and a plain edge. The obverse has the value in the center, “COLOMBIA” beneath it, the upper circular legend “MANZANO FARMING CO.”, the date below, and a counterstamp JB. The reverse reads “PAPAYO Y SATIVA” in the center, “MANZANO, CARREÑO, SOCONSUCA” above, and “SOTAQUIRA Y PAIPA” below. The mintage is given as unavailable. The provenance note says the piece was a gift of Carolina Martínez. That is Absoluti’s record, not Notofilia’s.

This case does not reproduce that photograph. The image stays on Absoluti’s page. It is not the token of 10 that Notofilia holds.

The token of 10

Notofilia holds a token of 10, dated 1901. The unit is not inscribed. The obverse carries MANZANO FARMING CO., 10, COLOMBIA, 1901, stars, and a toothed border. In the pair photograph the reverse reads PAPAYO, Y, and SATIVA, and around it MANZANO, CARREÑO, SOCONSUCA, and SOTAQUIRA Y PAIPA. That side is softer; the lettering was not reconstructed. These photos show no letter counterstamp. The record gathers the entry.

The index of Alexander Montaña Rodríguez’s bulletin, Medallas, fichas y monedas de Colombia, no. 6 (December 2015), lists “Hacienda Manzano Farming Co. 10 Centavos 1901, Resello BJ.” Entry 47, on page 13, gives 24.3 mm, 4.7 g, and brass for a countermarked example. Those measurements and that countermark are not carried over to this disc. Other listings say bronze. This piece’s metal is unverified.

The names on the reverse

Sotaquirá and Paipa are municipalities of Boyacá. Barriga gives them as the firm’s place, and the reverse repeats them. In Absoluti’s transcription the lower legend has no accent: “SOTAQUIRA Y PAIPA.”

Carreño and Soconsuca are on the metal as well. The Sotaquirá municipal development plan for 2020–2023 lists 29 veredas. Carreño, Soconsuca de Blancos, and Soconsuca de Indios are among them. The die says “SOCONSUCA,” in the singular. This page does not decide which of the two present veredas it names. The boundary table of the land-use scheme puts Carreño, on the north, against the municipality of Paipa.

Papayo does not appear in that list of 29 veredas. The plan does name papayuela among the permanent crops. That is not the same as reading “PAPAYO” on the die, and they are not equated here.

Absoluti’s reading of the reverse center is “PAPAYO Y SATIVA.” The pair photograph of the token of 10 reads SATIVA, not Satira. The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine of 24 December 1970, page 38, lists “Manzano Farming Co Papayo y Satira 1901.” Satira and Sativa are not the same spelling. Boyacá also has the municipalities of Sátiva Norte and Sátiva Sur. This page does not identify the legend with either of them.

The firm’s name

The same municipal plan counts the apple tree among Sotaquirá’s deciduous fruits, with plum, peach, and pear. The firm’s English name uses that word. The plan is from 2020–2023 and is not a ledger of the company in 1901. It describes the municipality’s crops, not an inventory of the estate.

The resolution of 1910

Barriga dates the ban on these tokens to 1910. He cites resolution no. 13 of 22 February of that year, by Treasury Minister Antonio José Cadavid: the circulation of private vouchers, tokens, or bonds meant to replace the national currency is forbidden, and workers have the right to be paid in the currency that circulates under the guarantee of the State. Whoever still had such pieces out was to call them in within two months of publication in the Diario Oficial, and exchange them for national currency.

That quotation is the article’s. This page has not collated the wording with the Diario Oficial. It is not article 136 of the 1950 Substantive Labor Code, which the hacienda-token essay treats separately. They are two statutes, forty years apart.

What this case holds

The 25 that Absoluti published is not a Notofilia piece. The counterstamp JB stays as initials and is not assigned to the 10.

The 1901 token of 10 is in this collection: token of 10, 1901. It carries no serial, no grading certificate, and no verified Henao, Restrepo, or KM number. The mintage is unpublished. This disc’s weight, diameter, and edge were not measured.