$1 Banco Minero note

The original $1 face and back plates were engraved on 24 July 1888. The face was altered on 19 November 1894 by changing the date and Serie^ABNC.

Peter Dunham has made the following observations on the imagery on this note. The $1 is a low value note so the audience for its ‘message’ will have been the lower classes, rather than the upper classes who used the higher denominations for banking and commercial transactions. The image in the primary position (on the front left, using the entire vertical field, with a partial cartouche and golden halo) has two elements, a seated native-looking woman with a feathered crown and palm frond, an idol under her right hand and fruit and sugarcane at her feet, on a carved stone throne, thus joining indigenous and archaeological themes. This image is much larger than the vignette of Commerce, whilst the bank’s headquarters are relegated to the back of the note.

The woman has an unspecified native air with no specific ethnic features but with a bare torso, long locks and bare feet. As for her status, she wears a generic native looking crown, but again nothing specifically Aztec. However, the details of the throne mark it as Aztec. It has a transverse anthropological figure in low profile, with a feathered headdress, studded ear, nose piercing, carrying a shield or standard with a central concavity, and holding what looks like a sceptre or orb but is in fact a spear thrower (atlatl).

Peter has tracked down the origin of this image. It is a tepetlacelli, an Aztec sacred carved stone box (8” high, 12’’ wide and 9” deep, so far smaller than a throne), currently housed in the Museé de Quai Branly in Paris, though in the nineteenth century it was in the Louvre and was described in the Latour Allard collection c. 1830. Though his attributes such as the nose-peg and atlatl the figure has been identified as the powerful Atzec god, Mixcoatl, though this would not have been recognised at the time.

This is not the first time that the image had appeared on notes. It was used for a Banco Mercantil Mexicano 500 pesos note of 1881 that never circulated. There the image is again on the left but the tepetlecalli is obscured by the value. It was also used on foreign notes, a Dominican Republic note of 1886, a Colombia note of 1880 and a Peru note of 1873, but in each case the tepetlecalli was either cropped or covered by other features. So the vignette (with the tepetlecalli) dates back to the National Bank Note Company in 1873, before it was taken over by the American Bank Note Company, and was recorded as 'La hija de los Incas ( the daughter of the Incas), V 49229'. It is not based on a photographic reproduction but likely modelled on previously published illustrations as in Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities of Mexico (1831), Menzel (1857) and Lützow und Lübke (1858).

Peter suggests that the vignette was chosen to personify Mexico and signal her rebirth with the restoration of Mexican government after the French intervention. The orb is the renovated Mexican sun, the palm victory and the fruit prosperity.

These early notes were withdrawn as a result of the 1897 Ley General de Instituciones de Crédito.

When Huerta relaxed restrictions on 19 November 1913 the bank issued $1 notes once again, in twenty-seven series, totaling 600,000 notes. The dateline now read 'CHIHUAHUA' with the full date applied at the time of issue (Type 8a).

On 24 November 1913 the bank asked the American Bank Note Company for the price and expected delivery time on 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 and 400,000 $1 notes similar to their last issue and on 28 November ordered 200,000 notes (100,000 Series A and 100,000 Series B). The ABNC had said that they could not use the existing plates, and the bank replied that they wanted something similar to the Banco Nacional de México but that the ABNC should use their own judgment in respect of text and all details^{ABNC letter Banco Minero, Mexico to Charles T. Blackmore, Resident Agent, ABNC, Mexico, 26 November 1913}. On 28 November the bank specified that the notes were to be signed by Luis Terrazas, as Presidente and Juan A. Creel as Gerente, but on 1 December asked to substitute Luis Terrazas with his son, Luis Terrazas, hijo as Consejero.

On 2 December the ABNC wrote to its agent to explain that he had misunderstood its telegram. It could not use the old plates owing to the fact that they were worn out, but could use the original die and simply produce new plates so the new notes would be exactly similar to those furnished in 1894. Hence they still have the anachronistic ‘en moneda de plata de cuño Mexicano’ rather than the more correct ‘a la par en efectivo’ .

On 13 January 1914 the bank ordered a further 100,000 $1 notes, Series C, with the signatures specified as being Martín Falomir as Consejero and Juan A. Creel as Gerente^{ABNC letter Charles T. Blackmore, Mexico, to ABNC, New York, 20 January 1914}.

Enrique Creel, on 19 January, asked the ABNC to leave the signature of the Consejero on the $1 note blank but the company replied on 21 January that there was no Consejero, rather Presidente, and that they had printed the notes according to the initial instructions and were shipping some notes the next day. They asked for further instructions but suggested that since some notes bore Luis Terrazas’ signature, the bank might prefer to have the remaining notes the same. On 22 January they were told to continue with Terrazas’ signature.

On 22 January the ABNC shipped 10,000 $1 notes (Series A, Nos. 000001-010000) on board the S.S. Monterey via Veracruz to the Banco Central Mexicano in Mexico City and on 29 January shipped the remaining 190,000 on board the SS Morro Castle.

However, when the notes arrived, it was realised that the ABNC had used Enrique C. Creel’s signature, rather than Juan A. Creel’s, for the Gerente^{ABNC telegram, Charles T. Blackmore to ABNC, New York, 10 February 1914}. Since this was unacceptable the ABNC reprinted the notes, leaving the signatures blank^{The ABNC records note that the $1 face plate was altered on order F3985 by removing the year date, Serie letter and signatures (ANBC)}, and the original notes were cremated in Mexico City on 13 March 1914 in the presence of Charles T. Blackmore, ABNC’s resident agent, and representatives of the Banco Minero and the Banco Central Mexicano.

The original two tint plates (#1 and #2) made on 24 July 1888, two face plates (#2 and #3) made on 19 November 1894, two face plates (#A8 and #A9) made on order F4148, and two back plates (#A7 and #A8) made on order F4087 were all cancelled on 13 April 1932^ABNC.