Cuenca opened its first notaphily expo

El Mercurio (13 November 2026) reports Cuenca’s first Expo Notafilia, at the Wissen institute. It gives no street and does not say whether entry is free.

Reviewed by: Yezid Acosta

Face and back of a five-sucre note of the Banco del Azuay — Five sucres of the Banco del Azuay, face and back. Not a piece from Expo Notafilia Cuenca 2026 and not a note in the collection. (Pablo Jarrín / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

On 13 November 2026, El Mercurio (opens in a new tab) reported that the first Expo Notafilia Cuenca 2026 opened on 12 November in the coworking space of the Instituto Tecnoempresarial Wissen. The report says the display brings together notes from different countries and periods, to bring the public closer to history, art, and culture through paper money. It is organized by the institute and the Asociación Numismática del Azuay. It is not a Notofilia fair, and no note from those tables is in the virtual collection.

The hours

El Mercurio sets the hours like this: 12 and 13 November, from 08:00 to 19:00, and Saturday the 14th, from 08:00 to 13:00. The report is dated the 13th. This note does not extend those hours. The paper does not say whether admission is free, and it does not give the institute’s street. Under the mark “(I)” are three addresses of the newspaper: Las Américas and Francisco Ascázubi, the El Vergel agency, and the downtown agency, at Padre Aguirre and G. Colombia. This note does not take them for the venue of the display.

The society

Actualidad Filatélica (opens in a new tab) (15 September 2019) reports that, at the end of August that year, in Cuenca, 21 numismatists formed the Asociación Numismática del Azuay, and that they then numbered 29 members. The piece says they were seeking legal recognition and that they met in the auditorium of the Museo Remigio Crespo Toral. It also says they had already given talks, including one on the notes of the Banco del Azuay. This note does not place the 2026 expo in that auditorium, and it does not update the membership list.

The word

El Mercurio defines notaphily as the collecting and study of banknotes, and says that issues make historical, economic, political, and cultural aspects known. In this collection, notaphily is the study and collecting of paper money. The Ecuador case documents a 1901 sucre of the Banco del Ecuador and two 1993 100-sucre notes of the Central Bank. It does not record a five-sucre note of the Banco del Azuay.

The photograph

The picture is not from the expo. It is the face and back of a five-sucre note of the Banco del Azuay, in a photograph by Pablo Jarrín published on Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) under a CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens in a new tab) license. The file titles it “5 sucres Banco de Azuay.” It is not a piece from the display and not a note in the collection. We do not publish El Mercurio’s photograph.