172 | Spanish Banknotes

Automatically generated translation

1000 Pesetas. July 18, 1937. Not issued and without numbering. (Edifil: NE44, Pick: 106E). Extremely rare, very few known copies, banknote of spectacular presence, professionally restored, without a doubt one of the rarest banknotes in the Spanish bill book. Very Fine. PMG30NET package.

Luis Auguet, as a representative of the Burgos government, established commercial relations between the rebel side and the Italian Coen printing house in Milan with the aim of producing a complete issue of banknotes to commemorate the first anniversary of the military uprising. Due to the formal limitations to be able to contact the English houses that had traditionally been manufacturing banknotes for Spain and due to the high prices of the contract with Giesecke & Devrient, it was decided to give the Italian house a chance, despite the fact that it did not have experience at work, signing the contract on August 1, 1937. At that time the printing house had a Serge Beaune intaglio press, but they really did not know how to use it; they limited themselves to representing that house commercially in Italy.

As a result of this inexperience, the manufacturing process was a disaster, causing problems in the preparation and numbering processes, something that greatly irritated the directors of the Bank of Spain in Burgos. The communication from the Coens coincided almost in time with the news that came through the SIPM about a possible forgery of banknotes of that issue not yet put into circulation. Thus, at the end of October of that same year, a 25 peseta note and another 1000 peseta note were found on both sides of the border with France. A month later another copy of 1000 pesetas was found in Tetouan, with correlative numbering to the one found in Hendaye.

All this was the result of a malpractice on the part of Cartevalori regarding the non-annulment and immediate destruction of defective bills. Despite the security of the police, the thefts of paper money took place, something that led to long and harsh exchanges by letter and in person between the two parties and whose dispute lasted for more than a decade.
Therefore, the Bank of Spain took the decision to burn the consignment of banknotes that had been received in the boilers of its Soria branch.

The copy offered in this auction is one from that failed manufacture of 1937. However, given the information available, it is very likely that the origin of this banknote is directly the Cartevalori warehouse, since no numbering is observed. Very few copies of this banknote model are known: one numbered, a pair with a disabled stamp and another pair without it, one of which seems to have a blue trace, characteristic of the Cartevalori cancellation, information that comes to us by a report of a visit made by personnel from the Bank of Spain to the factory in 1938, where it is indicated that sometimes they were crossed out and sometimes not. In addition, very few color tests are known.

This banknote originally had dangerous faults in the substrate, which is why paper stabilization has been chosen, the work done is extraordinary.

We thank Jose Antonio Castellanos Vargas for his collaboration in the historical contextualization of this extraordinary and historical piece of Spanish notaphilia.