Strength and Sovereignty
VEN112a, 2021, 200,000 VES

Slot Comment:

Bolivares Soberanos (Sovereign Bolivar)

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Note Details

  

Set Details
Note Description: Venezuela, Banco Central
200,000 Bolívares - Printer: CMV
Grade: 68 EPQ
Country: Venezuela
Note Number: VEN112a
Signatures/
Vignettes: 		- Wmk: S. Bolívar & BCV
Comment: Exceptional Paper Quality
Certification #: 8090201-006
Owner: Revenant
Set Category: World
Set Name: Strength and Sovereignty
Slot Name: VEN112a, 2021, 200,000 VES
Research: Currently not available

Owner's Description

The release of the three new 2021 banknotes was announced on Friday, 5 March 2021. At the time of the announcement, even according to official exchange rates, which are almost always better than black market rates, this note was only worth about US$0.11-0.12.

For the front the 2021 notes are essentially identical to the 2019 notes with the same portrait of Simon Bolivar but with different colors used to make it easier to tell the notes apart. The VEN112 and VEN113 also use the ““Mausoleum of the Liberator” reverse from the 2019 notes. However, the VEN114, the 1 Million Bolivar note, used a new design for the reverse.

A Bloomberg article from February 2020 - just before the start of the pandemic - indicated that Venezuela was ordering 300 million new bills - which would only have a face value of $143 million dollars, for an average face value of only US$0.47 each - from the state-owned money printer of Russia. They had to do this because they had racked up too much debt with De La Rue - one of the world’s largest money printers. I guess De La Rue was not willing to accept payment in the form of banknotes they’d just printed. But I guess the Russians were, for whatever reason.

Why were the Venezuelans now importing paper when previously they had tried to buy notes from a Printer in Russia? Prior to this their bills had been printed by CMV - Casa de la Moneda de Venezuela - their own printer. But then they started running into problems - problems like chronic power outages and not being able to get or afford ink, or paper. Of course, by October 2020 they were also blaming some of it on staffing issues caused by the pandemic. I am sure that didn’t help, but I’m not sure how much it hurt with the other issues already in play.

Articles from October 2020 indicate that, by that point, Venezuela was importing banknote paper from Brazil - 71 tons of security paper from an Italian printer, Fedrigoni. Apparently, this was the last shipment they were obligated to provide under a contract they entered into in 2018, just before the Trump administration-imposed sanctions.

By 2020, the Venezuela economy had been in recession and shrinking for 7 years and it was expected to shrink by another 20% that year, in part because of the pandemic - but I have a feeling it would have been shrinking either way.

Interestingly, both articles from February and October 2020 reference the government looking into a 100,000 BsS note, that would have had the same face value as the last and highest BsF note - but that note was either never released or (more likely) never actually printed, because a 200,000 BsS note was what we (and the people of Venezuela) got instead, with this note following directly behind the P-108, 50,000 BsS note from 2019. Interestingly, from the dates printed on the new notes – with some of them dated September 2020, the international press was speculating about a 100,000 BsS note in October while Venezuela was already printing 200,000 and 500,000 BsS notes and had already decided that 100,000 wasn’t going to cut it.

I think part of what we are seeing here is the homogenization around the portrait of Bolivar and the watermark of Bolivar in action. Using the same design makes it relatively easy to pivot or change what notes your making just by changing the numbers that indicate the denomination and hitting “print.” And there are now 6 consecutive notes / denominations using the same designs on the front and back but with different numbers and colors, and the last 7 consecutive notes have used the same front design and portrait.

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