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

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 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. Hernández (8th ed., 2023) numbers the circulating five-peso of 1 January 1883 — arms at left, Bolívar at center, black on brown — as Cód. 1109; this record is the ABNC proof pair, not that till row. 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.

The bank

From 1870 into the late 1880s Colombia had no single central bank: that was free banking. The government authorized private regional banks to issue notes backed by their own gold and silver reserves. In that window Riohacha was a frontier port on the Guajira, a merchants’ hinge with the Caribbean, Europe, and the interior. Moving metallic specie was dangerous; local credit avoided it. The 1882 statutes, printed at the Imprenta de Padilla, fix the bank’s constitution by local and foreign merchants. Adolfo Meisel places the start of operations in 1885, with an authorized capital of 150,000 pesos, and liquidation in 1888. Colombian notaphily catalogs — Hernández, and the specialized series — record a main issue of 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 pesos, and a fractional 20-centavo note, Series Y, dated around December 1885. This 1883 five-peso carries the American Bank Note Company imprint from New York; printers for the other values are not published here. Rafael Núñez’s Regeneración centralized political and economic power. The Banco Nacional was established in 1881; around 1886–1887 forced legal tender and laws that monopolized issue stripped private banks of the right to print. Without that faculty, and forced to take depreciating national paper, most regional issuers — including Riohacha’s — went into liquidation. In a few years the financial independence of this Colombian Caribbean port was over.

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 traveled a rugged frontier and, when the bank was wound up, were recalled: survivors are extremely rare and among the most sought-after pieces in Colombian notaphily. 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.