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5 Peso 1950, Cuba

in Krause book Number: 78b
Years of issue: 1950
Edition: --
Signatures: Presidente del Banco: Felipe Pazos Roque, Ministro de Hazienda: José M. Bosch Lamarque
Serie: No Serie
Specimen of: 1949
Material: Cotton fiber
Size (mm): 157 х 66
Printer: American Bank Note Company, New-York

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5 Peso 1950

Description

Watermark:

Avers:

5 Peso 1950

Text throughout the field of banknote: "Banco Nacional de Cuba".

Maximo Gomez y BaezThe engraving on banknote is made after this portrait of Maximo Baez.

Máximo Gómez y Báez (November 18, 1836 - June 17, 1905) was a Dominican Major General in the Ten Years' War (1868-1878). He was also Cuba's military commander in that country's War of Independence (1895-1898).

Gomez retired from the Spanish Army and soon took up the rebel cause in 1868, helping transform the Cuban Army's military tactics and strategy from the conventional approach favored by Thomas Jordan and others. He gave the Cuban Mambises their most feared tactic: The "Machete Charge".

On October 26, 1868 at Pinos de Baire, Gomez led a Machete Charge on foot, ambushing a Spanish column and obliterating it. The Spanish Army was terrified of these charges because the majority (there were at least 200 Spanish casualties in the attack) were infantry troops, mainly conscripts, who were fearful of being cut down by the machetes. Because the Cuban Army always lacked sufficient munitions, the usual combat technique was to shoot once and then charge the Spanish.

In 1871 Gómez led a campaign to clear Guantánamo from forces loyal to Spain, in particular the rich coffee growers - mostly of French descent, whose their ancestors had fled from Haiti after the Haitians slaughtered the French.

Gómez carried out a bloody, but successful campaign, and most of his officers went on to become high-ranking officers, including Antonio and José Maceo, Adolfo Flor Crombet, Policarpo Pineda "Rustán", and many others.

Following the death in combat of Major General Ignacio Agramonte y Loynáz in May 1873, Gómez assumed the command of the military district of the province of Camaguey and its famed Cavalry Corps. Upon first inspecting the corps he concluded they were the best trained and disciplined in the nascent indigenous Cuban Army and would significantly contribute to the war for independence.

On the left side is the red seal of Cuban National Bank.

Denominations in numerals and in words are on all sides of the banknote.

Revers:

5 Peso 1950

The coat of arms is in center.

coat

The Cuban Coat of Arms is the official heraldic symbol of Cuba. It consists of a shield, in front of a Fasces crowned by the Phrygian Cap, all supported by an oak branch on one side and a laurel wreath on the other. The coat of arms was created by Miguel Teurbe Tolón and was adopted on April 24, 1906.

The shield is divided into three parts:

In the chief, a key charging a blue sea between two rocks, symbolizing Cuba’s geographical position between Florida and the Yucatán Peninsula. A bright rising sun in the background symbolizes the rising of the new republic. A key is a symbol of Cuba as Cuba is the key to the Americas. On the left are the stripes of the flag of Cuba but turned so as they are bendwise. On the right is a common Cuban landscape, Royal Palm tree, a symbol of Cuba with mountains in the background.

The shield is supported by an oak branch on one side and a laurel wreath on the other. The oak branch symbolizes the strength of the nation; and the laurel wreath: honor and glory. These symbols were meant to represent the rights of man: Equality, Liberty and Fraternity.

A Phrygian Cap (Gorro Frigio) or liberty cap is located at the top, as a crown symbolizing liberty, with a sole star on it standing for independence.

Denominations are on left and right sides.

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