Paper Money: New Acquisitions

Those ABNCo Chihuahua notes are on my get list. Great designs...

Today's new pickup is the last of the passle, a few stragglers here. The top note is from Sonora, again the eagle clutching the snake, the back has a nice scene of Mazatlan. The second note, another Chihuahua note, and you'll never guess what's on the back... yep, another eagle with another snake. You'd think snakes would be extinct down that way by now...

 

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Got my 35 double date in the mail today. Love the blue seals.

 

Much nicer penmanship in those days.

 

Dated 1834, I got this Rhode Island note for my Wife. $19.99, can’t go wrong!

 

Gorgeous Rhode Island! Great price too. I'm jealous; I have zero obsolete American bills

 

Keeping on my Mexican theme, here's a crisp Bank of Hidalgo 1 Peso. This appears to be an unissued remainder, as I was unable to find any circulated examples of this note.
I paid around $13 for this.
Using the Mexican silver peso as a benchmark, this is worth the equivalent of about $28 in 2018 values.

This note is, unlike most Mexican issues of the time, small size instead of large size. which is a shame, really.

The obverse features a cool mining scene, with not one but three miners, outdoing the Chihuahuan 5 Peso by two miners.


The reverse features...somebody... with not much else of interest going on on the back.


For me, the obverse mining engraving makes the note. It's an entire work of art instead of just a head, which I think is awesome.

 

Strange thing is that PMG designated this note a “remainder,” when it is clearly signed, numbered, AND cancelled with punch holes along the bottom. Maybe some PMG experts could elaborate.

 

That's interesting.

I have a 1848 Hungary 2 Forint that is hand-signed and hand-dated, and yet still appears to be a remainder. As far as I can tell, those particular notes were issued by a government-in-exile in Philadelphia, and were never fully issued for actual usage.
I also have a 1 Forint of the same year that is unsigned and undated, but is from the same series and was never issued either.

Perhaps a similar situation (minus the government in exile) applies to your bill as well.

My guess is perhaps the guys who signed these bills thought they would be issued, but they never were? And so signed a small percentage while leaving the rest in the back.

Or something.

 

Here’s what I was talking about.

Guess one of the two guys signed the 1 Forint as well, but the other guy did not sign the 1 and only signed the 2.

 

hotwheelsearl wrote:
"The reverse features...somebody... with not much else of interest going on on the back."
Well, here's a small history of the "somebody".

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla led the Mexican independence movement against Spanish rule in 1810 and unleashed a torrent of political passions that rocked Mexico for the first sixty years of its history as a nation. Born in May 1753 in Guanajuato, Hidalgo entered the priesthood in 1779, eventually pasturing a parish in Dolores. For the next quarter of a century, he performed his duties as a spiritual shepherd, but also read texts on political theory.

In 1808 Hidalgo became a leader of an underground independence movement centered around literary clubs where the talk centered on emerging ideas on nationalism and political liberty. When authorities moved to arrest him, he gathered together his followers and his parishioners and issued the “Grito de Delores” on September 16, 1810, a de facto declaration of independence. He quickly gathered an insurgent army that rampaged through central Mexico. Almost immediately the violence turned on issues of race, and his high-minded revolution turned bloody and excessive.

Spanish troops checked Hidalgo’s forces near Mexico City ending two months of lurid battles and massacres. For the next nine weeks Royalist forces hounded the Mexican insurgents and eventually scattered the rebels. Hidalgo became a fugitive and headed for the northern frontera, apparently hoping to escape into the United States or to stage a counter-attack from a remote base. Spanish troops intercepted him and Catholic authorities happily stripped him of his ecclesiastical protections.

Hidalgo died before a firing squad in Chihuahua in the summer of 1811 but the forces he had released would ravage Mexico for decades to come. Mexico gained its independence in 1821.

 

1963 Bank of Mexico 5 Pesos. Using the contemporary silver peso as a benchmark, this was worth about $3.00 in 2018 values.

Obverse feature a very attractive female gypsy lady. I'm not too sure who she is, or whether she's a real person or a allegorical figure. Either way, she's pretty!



Reverse features the same triumphal column as the 1 Peso note. I like the two orangey stamps on the corners as they add a splash of much needed color into the reverse.

 

Thanks for the info! Banknotes get more interesting the more you know about the figures represented.

 

hotwheelsearl in regards to the "gypsy", here's a story:
Two Mexican Women

Peter Symes


For many years, two of the lowest denomination notes circulating in Mexico were adorned with portraits of women. The 10-peso note carried a young woman in a peculiar and ornate headdress, while the 5-peso note bore the head of a lady garlanded with jewellery. Both women appear on banknotes issued by the Banco de Mexico, but one of them is not Mexican; both women have been the subject of debate, but for entirely different reasons; and both women have been identified, but, for the identity of one, a legend continues to supplant the truth.

The first of these two women to be immortalized appeared on the 5-peso notes of the Banco de Mexico, issued from its foundation in 1925 until 1972. Immediately following the issue of the banknotes, rumour spread as to the identity of the woman portrayed in the vignette, although initially she was referred to as the gitana, or ‘gypsy’. While the identity of the ‘gypsy’ was never officially disclosed, it was not long before the lady was determined to be Gloria Faure.

Gloria Faure and her sister Laura were two Catalonian ‘artistes’ who were performing in Mexico around 1925. The ladies were reported to have shared their favours with a number of influential men in Mexico and Gloria was said to be the mistress of Alberto J. Pani, the Minister of Finance in the Mexican Government. Pani was known for his philandering and speculation asserted that it was his mistress who had posed for the portrait of the gypsy.

Pani’s philandering had followed him to New York in 1925, where he was negotiating a financial deal with the Americans on behalf of the Mexican Government. While in New York he was accused of keeping women in conditions that were contrary to the ‘Mann Act’, or the ‘White Slavery’ act. His hotel was searched but no charges laid. However, the scandal had broken and the woman who was supposedly accompanying Pani was Gloria Faure. Pani offered to resign, but President Plutarco Elías Calles refused his resignation, having told his Deputies that he did not want a Cabinet of eunuchs.

President Calles’ support for Pani was possibly due to his similar penchant for the fairer sex. Indeed, Calles was suspected of having accepted favours from Gloria Faure himself. This brought accusations that the appearance of Gloria Faure’s portrait on the banknotes had been orchestrated through the efforts of the President himself and not through the intervention of the Finance Minister. However, no matter who was responsible, it became certain that Gloria Faure had posed as the ‘gypsy’.

Truth, of course, is not nearly so exciting as fiction. In 1976 the head of the Numismatic Museum at the Banco de Mexico, Professor Guadelupe Monroy, wrote to the American Banknote Company, asking for details on the portrait that appeared on the Mexican 5-peso notes. The reply indicated that the original engraving was created by Mr. Robert Savage as a stock vignette and was titled ‘The Ideal Head of an Algerian Girl’. More importantly, the portrait was engraved in 1910, fifteen years before the 5-peso notes were issued and long before the era of Gloria Faure’s great popularity. Despite the efforts of Professor Monroy in seeking the truth, the legend of Gloria Faure lives on, with many dealers’ lists and catalogues continuing to identify the portrait as that of the Catalonian artiste.
This article was completed in January 2003
(and last updated in January 2007)
© Peter Symes

So there you go.

An example from my collection:

 

Heritage recent acquisitions

 

Few more: