Commercial vales al portador

On 30 April 1885 a correspondent for a Mexico City paper wrote from Isla del Cármen “There is nothing important in state politics, nor in the progress of society, that is worthy of informing you, unless it is the absolute lack of money in circulation that paralyzes transactions: and there are no banknotes, because this great engine of change has still not been introduced here, it happens that business makes purchases and sales with vales al portador for which no one gives 90%, because they are actually vales of an undetermined timelimit, payable whenever. The little metal in circulation is barely enough for the payment of taxes, most of which leave the town not to return. The situation is so tight, that if in the next few months there are no large sums to redeem the vales, we will have to return to the original barter of product for product and effect for effect.”^{El Monitor Republicano, Año XXXV, Núm. 126, 27 May 1885: El Nacional, 28 May 1885}.

It is not known whether these vales were printed, with discrete denominations, or merely chits.