One Real

Historical and Issue Context

The fight for independence:after Cartagena declared absolute independence from Spain in November 1811, the revolutionary government faced the urgent need to finance its military campaigns and defend itself against royalist forces.

The cash crisis:Because gold and silver coins were being hoarded or used exclusively for foreign trade and war supplies, the local government turned to an emergency solution: the issuance of fiat paper money.

The issue of 1813:a limited printing of small-denomination notes (including 1 Real and 2 Reales) was authorized. Because the local population was deeply skeptical of paper and accustomed exclusively to precious metals, this money met enormous public resistance and low acceptance.

Key Details Visible on the Banknote

• Name and date:at the top it reads “UN REAL”, followed by the year and series “A — 1813”.
• The signature (Piñeres):the handwritten signature reads “Piñeres”, accompanied by an intricate and distinctive security flourish. It belongs toGermán Gutiérrez de Piñeres y Cárcamo, patriotic leader of the aristocracy of Mompox, prosecutor, member of the Supreme Council of Cartagena and president of thePatriotic Board. The Piñeres brothers (Germán, Gabriel and Vicente) were the radicals who strongly promoted the total break with the Spanish crown in Cartagena.
• The reverse:The lower half of the image shows the back of the bill, where the signature and flourish on the handmade paper of the time are visible (or repeated for validation), along with faint handwritten control text marks, typical of emergency vouchers from the early 19th century.

Rarity and Collectible Value

Extreme shortage:Because they were printed on a very basic and absorbent paper, and because the vast majority of them were destroyed, rejected or confiscated during the bloody era of the Spanish Reconquista (led by Pablo Morillo from 1815), surviving copies are extraordinarily scarce.

Conservation status:Colombian Notafilia records and catalogs classify these pieces from Cartagena from 1813 as authentic numismatic rarities, of which only a handful of specimens are known in select collections worldwide.

Additional Context

Cartagena was the first city in New Granada to declare absolute independence from Spain, and the last to fall to the Reconquista after a devastating siege in 1815. These Reales — banknotes along with parallel issues from other provincial boards of the time, such as Antioquia and Mariquita — are part of a brief but crucial chapter: the first South American attempt to sustain a war of independence with fiat paper money, decades before Republican banks consolidated national issuance.

Historical and Issue Context

Civilian use after Cádiz:the document identifies the notary Antonio Alvares and the grantor “citizen José María Terán” —the term “citizen” instead of the colonial “vasallo” reflects the linguistic change introduced by the Constitution of Cádiz of 1812.

The contradiction of dates and the stamp “INDEPENDENCIA”:The base paper was originally stamped for 1802–1803 and revalidated for 1812–1813, but the handwritten text is dated February 20, 1821. During the Spanish Liberal Triennium (1820–1823), at the height of the American wars of independence, the shortage of official stamped paper led the treasury offices to reuse old inventories of stamped paper from 1812–1813, applying a manual rate adjustment overstamp (“Un Real”) with updated sovereignty legends to give them legal validity in 1821.

The notarial signature:Each colonial and nineteenth-century notary had to stamp their personal signature next to the signature; Without it, the document lacked legal validity before any court of the Royal Court or the new independent government.

The “Third Seal” and its four classes:The Spanish stamped paper system divided documents into four mandatory classes according to the importance of the procedure —the First Seal (24 reales) for grants of royal lands or titles of nobility; the Second Seal (6 reales) for main contracts and original deeds; and the Third Seal (2 reales), the standard sheet for general civil use, intended for powers of attorney, ordinary judicial actions and civil declarations such as the one in this document.

A direct tax to the Crown:The printed value of Dos Reales was a tax that the citizen paid in advance for the simple right to carry out the procedure; the use of plain, unsealed paper invalidated the act completely. This revenue was vital to finance local public administration and remit income to the central coffers in times of crisis.

Paper shortage and recycling:the original text “Years One Thousand Eight Hundred Two and Eight Hundred Three” shows that the sheet was produced at the beginning of the century; the paper shortage caused by the Napoleonic Wars in Spain and the American revolutions forced this stock to be reused as the base “fiscal substrate,” later revalidated for 1812–1813 and adjusted with the Un Real stamp in 1821 to match the rates in force during the Liberal Triennium.

Key Details Visible in the Document

• Header:“THIRD STAMP, TWO REALES, YEARS OF ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWO AND EIGHT HUNDRED AND THREE”, in black block typography.
• Revalidation seal (upper left):woodblock-printed circular seal with the royal arms of Spain and the text “CAROLUS IV D.G. HISPANIARUM REX”, topped by “Valga para los años de 1812 y 1813”.
• Handwritten note of “three reales”:hand note over the text field to reset the required rate.
• “UN REAL” Adjustment Stamp from 1813:secondary round fiscal seal with a central eagle and the inscription “UN REAL / A-1813 / INDEPENDENCIA” —applied directly by the treasury office to update the paper's tax class during the geopolitical crisis.
• Body of text:written in iron-gall ink, it identifies “el Escno. Antonio Alvares” and “ciudadano José María Terán”, and is dated “Málaga á veinte de febrero de mil ochocientos veinte y uno”.

Sources

• Pick, Albert.Standard Catalog of World Paper Money.
• Hernández, Pedro Pablo.Coins and Banknotes of Colombia.
• Numista —numista.com(opens in a new tab)
• Bank of the Republic —banrep.gov.co(opens in a new tab)
• Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy (Cádiz, 1812) — on the introduction of the term “citizen”.