This site is a work in progress, and I’m refreshing the images from my collection so they look their best. If you don’t find the piece you came for just yet, thanks for your patience — I’m glad you’re here.

NOTOFILIA Numismatics and Notaphily
ES — Spanish EN — English
Vintage illustrated map of Riohacha on parchment, with the cathedral, the pier, the Caribbean Sea, La Guajira, a passport, and the title Riohacha

Colombia · Free banking · ABNC proofs

5 pesos · Banco de Rio Hacha · 1883

A pair of American Bank Note Company proofs: face S819p1, slabbed PMG 64 Choice Uncirculated EPQ; back S819p2, PMG 62 Uncirculated. Series C, serial 00000.

Catalog facts

Pick reference
P# S819p1 / S819p2
Serial number
C 00000
Signatures
Unsigned (printer’s proofs)
Condition
Face PMG 64 Choice Uncirculated EPQ · Back PMG 62 Uncirculated
Printage
American Bank Note Company, New York. Printer’s mount dated February 1883; Series C. No circulating printage is published.

Face

Download JPEG. A download will start.

Face proof, Pick S819p1, slabbed PMG 64 Choice Uncirculated EPQ: Bolívar, the arms, an allegory of industry, and serial C 00000.

Face proof, Pick S819p1, slabbed PMG 64 Choice Uncirculated EPQ: Bolívar, the arms, an allegory of industry, and serial C 00000.
Face proof, Pick S819p1, slabbed PMG 64 Choice Uncirculated EPQ: Bolívar, the arms, an allegory of industry, and serial C 00000.

Back

Download JPEG. A download will start.

Back proof, Pick S819p2, slabbed PMG 62 Uncirculated: a sepia ornamental frame, the figures 5, and the American Bank Note Company imprint.

Back proof, Pick S819p2, slabbed PMG 62 Uncirculated: a sepia ornamental frame, the figures 5, and the American Bank Note Company imprint.
Back proof, Pick S819p2, slabbed PMG 62 Uncirculated: a sepia ornamental frame, the figures 5, and the American Bank Note Company imprint.

The note

The Banco de Rio Hacha — today’s Riohacha, on the Guajira — left printed statutes in 1882, from the Imprenta de Padilla. The next year it ordered five-peso paper from the American Bank Note Company in New York. The Standard Catalog of World Paper Money — Specialized Issues numbers it S819p: black on a brown underprint, arms at left, Simón Bolívar at center, and at right a female allegory leaning on a wheel. The series is C. The mount of these proofs is dated “February 1883.” The face promises to pay at the office, on sight and to the bearer, five pesos in current money; the red serial is 00000 and three cancellation punches cut the lower margin. The sepia back is a scrollwork frame with a 5 at each flank and the imprint “AMERICAN BANK NOTE COMPANY, NEW YORK.” There are no signatures: these are plate proofs, not a note placed in circulation. This record gathers the collection’s two PMG holders — face and back, separately slabbed.

Scarcity and printage

RealBanknotes describes type S819p as an 1883 printer’s proof, not a till issue. A lot from the Eldorado collection, cited by PMG, was likewise an S819p proof. Circulating notes of this coastal bank are extremely rare; the market mostly sees New York plates, often mounted, punch-cancelled, and with zero serials. This record does not invent a printage.

Population

The two pieces in this record are slabbed by PMG: the face as 64 Choice Uncirculated EPQ (S819p1) and the back as 62 Uncirculated (S819p2). A population census for these holder numbers has not been independently verified.

Sources

← Colombia · Free banking