Incinerations of Constitutionalist issues
From December 1914 Carranza made arrangements for the withdrawal and destruction of the various issues that he ultimately acknowledged. Firstly on 8 December 1914 Carranza decreed that from 1 April 1915 the Monclova issue, Luis Caballero’s issue in Tamaulipas, three issues from Durango (the Estado de Durango notes dated December 1913, those dated January 1914, and Arrieta’s issue of August 1914) and Obregón’s Pagaduría del Cuerpo del Noroeste issue in Guadalajara dated August 1914 would be exchanged (and implicitly destroyed). On 16 Januay 1915 Carranza brought forward the withdrawal of the Monclova issue and immediately demoneterised it because of the number of counterfeits in circulation. On 27 March 1915 Carranza extended the deadline for the withdrawal of these notes to 30 June and added the Obligaciones Provisionales. On 1 June Carranza decreed the withdrawal and exchange of the fractional notes of the Cuerpo de Ejército del Noroeste. On 21 July he authorised his infalsificable issue and a week later, on 28 July, Carranza withdrew the low numbered Gobierno Provisional de México notes that he was willing to acknowledge.
On 4 April 1916 Carranza ordered the issue of Gobierno Provisional de México notes to stop, and the printing of $36,000,000 (sic) that had almost been completed was suspendedEl Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 521, 13 May 1916. A third part of the note was retained as a record and the rest sent to the Fabrica de Cartón next to the Oficina Impresora de Billetes where they were subjected to an acid bath and turned into cardboard. On 15 May $39,700,400 were chopped up and converted into cardboardacción mundial. Vol. I, Núm. 27, 15 May 1916. An alternative version gives $36,000,000 (El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 523, 15 May 1916: El Nacional, Núm. 7, 15 May 1916).
On 28 June 1916 Carranza ordered that the 5c, 10c and 20c cartones and $10 Ejercito Constitucionalista and Veracruz notes should be withdrawn by 30 June, and exchanged by 30 August, while the federal offices would exchange the $1, $5, and $10 values of these two issues for infalsificables or certificates in oro nacional.
By 22 July $225,000,000 in Veracruz and Ejército Constitucionalista notes had been collectedEl Pueblo, Año III, Tomo I, Núm. 625, 23 July 1916 but it took time to complete their inventories. On 25 July $50,000,000 in $10, $20, $50 and $100 Veracruz and Ejército Constitucionalista were ready for incineration in furnaces of Oficina Impresora, Palacio NacionalEl Pueblo, Año III, Tomo I, Núm. 627, 25 July 1916, Some of these were available to the viewing public in 32 cases on display at the offices of the Comisión Monetaria, avenida Francisco I. Madero.
The reports of such incinerations often conflated the various issues, especially in aggregating the Ejército Constitucionalista and Gobierno Provisional de México issues, and are not complete. Besides the publicity-seeking events in te Nacional Palace, destructions took place in local offices, and in 19[ ] there was a drive to hold smaller crowd-sourced events as contributions to reduce the national debt.
In addition, given the millions of pesos involved, a partial listing of incinerations, throws little light on the survival and scarcity of notes. However the following is a summary of recorded incinerations of these Constitutionalist issues.
Notes of the various commanders listed in the 8 December 1914 decree
Quantities of Obregón notes and bonos were incinerated in October and November 1914El Pueblo, Año II, Tomo II, Núm. 114, 26 January 1915.
| Date | $1 | $5 | $10 | $20 | $50 | $100 | Total |
| 3 March 1915 notes of Durango, Monclova and Obligaciones Provisionales in the boilers of the steamship “Zaragoza” (alt. steamship "Melchor Ocampo") in the presence of Nicéforo Zambrano, the Tesorero General de la Nación, Manuel Cavazos García, Enrique González and J. M. Gabiela, from the Tesorería General, José Silva Herrera, from the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, and Esteban Larrañaga, a reporter for El Demócrata (El Democráta, Veracruz, Tomo I, Núm. 130, 3 March 1915: El Pueblo, Año II, Tomo II, Núm. 150, 3 March 1915) | $ 166,506.50 | ||||||
| 25 March 1916El Pueblo, 25 March 1916: El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 472, 25 March 1916 | $ ? |
Notes of the Gobierno Provisional de México (México) issues
| Date | $1 | $5 | $10 | $20 | $50 | $100 | Total | Accumulated total |
| 25 March 1916in the Oficina Impresora de Estampillas and witnessed by Augusto Aillaud, Subtesorero General de la Nación; Adolfo A. Pastrana and Wilfrido Ródriguez Parra, Inspectores Generales de Hacienda attached to the Tesorería; Francisco E. Velasco, jefe de la sección segunda of the Secretaría and representing the Comisión Interventora of the Oficinas de Contraste, Canje y Resello; C. J. Pruneda, jefe de la sección de Contraste; Federico Urquiza and Cruz Martínez, Interventores named by the Secretaría de Hacienda; C. Bernardo García Martínez, jefe de Amortización y Estadística (El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 472, 25 March 1916: El Pueblo, 25 March 1916) | $22,000 | $68,500 | $1,080,000 | $3,002,200 | $ 4,172,700 |
Notes of the Ejercito Constitucionalista and Veracruz issues
On 22 July the Secretaría de Hacienda announced that of the 250 million pesos of the Veracruz and Ejército Constitucionalista issues that had so far been collected fifty million were ready to be incinerated. These were on view in the offices of the Comisión Monetaria and the incinerations would be carried out daily in the Oficinas Impresoras de HaciendaLa Tribuna, 26 July 1916.
| $1 | $2 | $5 | $10 | $20 | $50 | $100 | Total | Accumulated total |
|
| 1 Aprilreport on incinerations from 28 August 1915 to 30 April 1916 | $ 1,786,800.00 | ||||||||
| 8 Aprilibid. | 915,634.60 | ||||||||
| 4,095,800.00 | |||||||||
| 24 Aprilibid. | 3,396,090.00 | ||||||||
| 27 Aprilibid. | |||||||||
| 30 Aprilreport on incinerations from 28 August 1915 to 30 April 1916 | 4,739,055.00 | ||||||||
| 8,889,046.20 | |||||||||
| 15 Maycollected from the Tesorería General and Ferrocarriles Constitucionalistas and incinerated in the furnaces of the Oficina Impresora del Timbre (Palacio Nacional); witnessed by Rafael Nieto, sub-secretario de Hacienda, Nicéforo Zambrano, Tesorero General de la Nación, Alberto J. Pani, presidente of the Ferrocarriles Constitucionalistas; Carlos B. Zetina, Mauricio and Carlos M. Seoare. of the Comisión Monetaria, Serapio Aguirre, director of the Oficina Impresora, and Antonio Herrejón López, subdirector of the same. Representing commerce and banking were Eduardo del Raso, José María Dosamantes, Jesús Revilla, Carlos Markassuza, Ignacio Rivera, Emilio Elgoro, Manuel Berriozábal, Hubert Andragnez, director of the Banco de París y México; Samuel Hermann, C. Hugo Hahn, manager of the Banco Germánico de la América del Sur; Carlos Arellano, Vicente Echegaray, Francisco F. de la Vega, representing the Banco de Londres; Ricardo Hornedo, Braulio Heriarte and José J. Burgos, manager of the Banco Internacional é Hipotecario de México, and Damaso Ferrer, cajero de valores, and Angel del Villar, for the Banco Nacional de México (acción mundial. Vol. I, Núm. 27, 15 May 1916 and El Nacional, Núm. 7, 15 May 1916) | 10,000,000.00 | ||||||||
| 22 June El Pueblo, 23 June 1916 | 7,538,000.00 | ||||||||
| 25 JulyEl Pueblo, Año III, Tomo I, Núm. 625, 23 July 1916 | 275,000.00 | ||||||||
| 25 JulyEl Nacional, Núm. 58, 29 July 1916 | 2,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 4,000,000.00 | ||||||
| 26 JulyEl Nacional, Núm. 58, 29 July 1916 | 10,080,000.00 | ||||||||
| 28 Julyin Oficina Impresora and witnessed by the Inspector of the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Claudio M. Cárdenas; the jefe of the Departamento de Amortización de la Comisión Monetaria, Angel Silva, and the Secretarios of the Comisión Monetaria, Carlos M. Seoane and Mauricio Gómez (El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 599, 29 July 1916: El Nacional, Núm. 58, 29 July 1916) | 1,260,000 | 5,920,000 | 7,180,000.00 | ||||||
| 29 JulyEl Nacional, Núm. 58, 29 July 1916 | 2,740,000.00 | ||||||||
|
to 31 July In the Departamento de Amortizaciones (El Pueblo, 5 September 1916; La Defensa, 5 September 1916) |
95,531,000.00 | ||||||||
| other dates in JulyEl Nacional, 5 October 1916. The total for July was $25,000,000 | |||||||||
| 1 August to 4 AugustTotal of $6,324,550 for 1 to 4 August ( ) | 3,588,085.00 | ||||||||
| 2 Augustin the Oficina Impresora and witnessed by Carlos M. Seoane, Angel Silva, Claudio M. Cárdenas and Daniel Estrada (El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 362, 5 August 1916) | $159,525 | 215,420 | 681,280 | 1,056,215.00 | |||||
| 3 Augustin the Oficina Impresora and witnessed by Carlos M. Seoane, Angel Silva, Claudio M. Cárdenas and Daniel Estrada (El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 362, 5 August 1916) | 528,000numbered 10856001 to 1138400 | 528,000.00 | |||||||
| 4 AugustIn the Departamento de Amortizaciones (El Pueblo, 5 September 1916; La Defensa, 5 September 1916; La Defensa, 8 September 1916) | 1,152,250.00 | 102,007,800.00 | |||||||
| 7 to 12 AugustEl Nacional, Núm. 69, 14 August 1916 | 21,000,000.00 | ||||||||
| 14 AugustEl Nacional, Núm. 69, 14 August 1916: El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 372, 15 August 1916 | 4,200,000 | 4,200,000.00 | |||||||
| 15 AugustEl Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 373, 16 August 1916: El Regenerador, Tuxtla Gutíerrez, Tomo II, Núm. 123. 24 August 1916 | 400,000numbered 44000001 to 44400000 | 1,050,000 | 840,000 | 1,680,000 | 1,800.000 | 5,770,000 00 | |||
| 16 AugustEl Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 374, 17 August 1916 | 300,000numbered 44400001 to 44700000 | 1,680,000 | 840,000 | 2,820,000 00 | |||||
| 17 AugustEl Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 376, 19 August 1916 | 300,000numbered 44700001 to 45000000 | 1,980,000 | 840,000 | 3,120,000,00 | |||||
| 18 August to 30 AugustTotal for 7 to 31 August of $70,000,000 (La Defensa, 12 September 1916) | 29,766,000 00 | ||||||||
| 31 AugustEl Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 388, 1 September 1916 | 294,000 | 420,000 | 840,000 | 1,680,000 | 3,234,000 00 | ||||
| other dates in AugustEl Nacional, 5 October 1916. The total for August was $70,531,000 | |||||||||
| 1 September to 6 SeptemberLa Defensa, 12 September 1916 | 16,406,100.00 | ||||||||
| 4 September 1916in Veracruz notes (La Defensa, 8 September 1916 | 1,152,000.00 | ||||||||
| 10 SeptemberLa Defensa, 12 September 1916 | 126,000 | 252,000 | 211,000 | 400,000 | 1,428,000.00 | 122,161,113.00 | |||
| other dates in SeptemberEl Nacional, 5 October 1916. The total for September was $81,415,300 | |||||||||
| 1-3 October 1916El Nacional, 5 October 1916 | 7,797,300.00 | ||||||||
| By 24 OctoberEl Pueblo, Año, III, Tomo I, Núm. 727, 24 October 1916 | 240,000,000.00 | ||||||||
| By 3 DecemberEl Pueblo, Año III, Tomo I, Núm. 754, 4 December 1916 | 430,000,000.00 |
On 15 May 1916 $39,077,400 in Veracruz notes, produced by the Oficina Impresora de Estampillas but never issued, were destroyed.
| $1 | $2 | $5 | $10 | $20 | $50 | $100 | Total | Accumulated total |
|
| 15 May 1916In the Oficina Impresora de Estampillas and witnessed by Nicéforo Zambrano, Rafael Nieto, representing the Secretaría de Hacienda, and Alberto J. Pani and Antonio Herrejón López, representing the Comisión Monetaria (El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 524, 16 May 1916 | 19,469,400 | 19,608,000 | $39,077,400 |
Up to 30 September 1916 $176,946,300 in Ejército Constitucionalista and Veracruz paper had been destroyed, and from then until 12 October another $37,458,450 was destroyed, making a total of $214,404,7507. El Demócrata, 13 October 1916.
Angel Silva expected all Veracruz (and other withdrawn issues) to be destroyed by end of 1916 El Pueblo, 24 October 1916.
In a report to Congress on 1 September 1917 Carranza reported that the incinerations by the Comisión Monetaria and other government offices had reached $547,471,960.06. In addition they had destroyed $48,658,355.00, in notes that came from the Oficina Impresora of the Secretaría de Hacienda and had never been put into circulationPeriódico Oficial, Tamaulipas, Tomo XLII, Núm. 75, 19 September 1917.
"Illegal" notes, that is of the opposing factions
There are some mentions of "illegal" notesEl Pueblo, Año III, Tomo I, Núm. 557, 13 May 1916: El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 521, 13 May 1916.
| Date | $1 | $5 | $10 | $20 | $50 | $100 | Total |
| 17 February 1916 | $334,179.80 | ||||||
| 24 April 1916 | 416,910.00 | ||||||
Counterfeit notes
There are also some mentions of counterfeit notesEl Pueblo, Año III, Tomo I, Núm. 557, 13 May 1916: El Demócrata, Tomo III, Núm. 521, 13 May 1916.
| Date | $1 | $5 | $10 | $20 | $50 | $100 | Total |
| 28 August 1915 | $ 87,392.000 | ||||||
| 8 April 1916 | 965,741.25 | ||||||
| 27 April 1916 | 3,004,453.05 |
| Date | Legal |
| 28 August 1915report on incinerations from 28 August 1915 to 30 April 1916 | $1,050,510.00 |
| 19 June 1915report on incinerations from 28 August 1915 to 30 April 1916 | 508,206.00 |
| 17 February 1916footnote}report on incinerations from 28 August 1915 to 30 April 1916 | 8,995,700.00 |
| 18 March 1916footnote}report on incinerations from 28 August 1915 to 30 April 1916 | 3,871,750.00 |
| 26 March 1916footnote}report on incinerations from 28 August 1915 to 30 April 1916 | 4,172,700.00 |