Production

Butterfly cut

Mariposa

Mariposa, in Hernández’s Colombian notaphily, is a cutting error: a wing-shaped scrap of paper remains attached to the note’s edge, a remnant of the sheet margin that did not fully separate. It is not a specimen or a proof. It is not foxing or a wallet tear. The triangular flap is visible at the edge and often carries margin ink or watermark. The 5,000-peso note of 31 July 2010, Pick 452l / TBB B989m, serial 09636101, keeps that flap at the top edge; González White numbers the date BG# 541 and gives no printage for the error.

BanRep’s 2010 production of 5,000-peso notes is 98.149 million pieces: the denomination total for that year, not of this date or this cut. Numista assigns TBB B989m and Hernández 570 to the type, with Braille in the watermark area. This record gathers face and back of the same unslabbed note, in a sleeve. It is not merged with the 2008 50,000 numbering errors or with 1,000-peso faults of other dates: each serial is another object.

Anyone who sees a wing taped on or a home-made trim is not looking at a factory butterfly. Hernández uses the word for a guillotine fault, not as a design nickname. This collection does not publish a price or a census of butterfly cuts. The term stays tied to 09636101 and to the error case, and to the printing-error article, so that every fault is not treated as the same phenomenon.

Hernández reserves mariposa for the cutting wing, not for a bird design on the Emberá back. Mixing those senses is a reading error. Colombia’s error case gathers this piece with numbering faults of other denominations; the glossary keeps them as separate articles so that 09636101 does not absorb 72461316.

See also: Printing error , Specimen , Proof / essay

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