2 Bolivares 2007, Venezuela
| in Krause book | Number: 88b |
| Years of issue: | 24.05.2007 |
| Edition: | 90 000 000 |
| Signatures: | Presidente BCV: Gastón Parra Luzardo, Primer VicePresidente BCV: José Ferrer Navas |
| Serie: | 2007 Serie |
| Specimen of: | 20.03.2007 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 157 x 69 |
| Printer: | Casa de la Moneda de Venezuela, Av. José Casanova Godoy, Hacienda La Placera, Maracay |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
Portrait of Francisco de Miranda and electrotype "2".
Avers:
The engraving on banknote is made after a copy done by Charles Ventrillon-Horber (26 February 1889 - 1977), based on Georges Rouget (1781-1869) artwork.
Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez de Espinoza (March 28, 1750 - July 14, 1816), commonly known as Francisco de Miranda, was a Venezuelan revolutionary. Although his own plans for the independence of the Spanish American colonies failed, he is regarded as a forerunner of Simón Bolívar, who during the Spanish American wars of independence successfully liberated a vast portion of South America. Miranda led a romantic and adventurous life. An idealist, he developed a visionary plan to liberate and unify all of Spanish America but his own military initiatives on behalf of an independent Spanish America ended in 1812. He was handed over to his enemies and four years later, in 1816, died in a Spanish prison. Within fourteen years of his death, however, most of Spanish America was independent. 
On the background are the Venezuelan flags.
The current flag of Venezuela was introduced in 2006. The basic design includes a horizontal tricolor of yellow, blue, and red, dating to the original flag introduced in 1811, in the Venezuelan War of Independence. Further modifications have involved including a set of stars, multiple changes to the placement and number of stars and inclusion of an optional coat of arms at the upper-left corner.
The flag is essentially the one designed by Francisco de Miranda for his unsuccessful 1806 expedition to liberate Venezuela and later adopted by the National Congress of 1811. It consisted of three equal horizontal stripes of yellow, blue and red. Miranda's flag is also the inspiration for the flags of Colombia and Ecuador. This original design was first flown on March 12, 1806 at Jacmel, Haiti as Miranda's expedition prepared to make the final leg of its voyage to Venezuela. The flag was first flown over Venezuelan soil at La Vela de Coro, on August 3. Until August 3, 2006, Flag Day was celebrated in Venezuela on March 12. Since 2006 it has been celebrated on August 3.
Miranda gave at least two sources of inspiration for his flag. In a letter written to Count Semyon Vorontsov in 1792, Miranda stated that the colors were based on a theory of primary colors given to him by the German writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Miranda described a late-night conversation he had with Goethe at a party in Weimar during the winter of 1785. Fascinated with Miranda's account of his exploits in the United States Revolutionary War and his travels throughout the Americas and Europe, Goethe told him that, "Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colors are not distorted.” He proceeded to clarify what he meant by this:
"First he explained to me the way the iris transforms light into the three primary colors […] then he proved to me why yellow is the most warm, noble and closest to [white] light; why blue is that mix of excitement and serenity, a distance that evokes shadows; and why red is the exaltation of yellow and blue, the synthesis, the vanishing of light into shadow.
It is not that the world is made of yellows, blues and reds; it is that in this manner, as if in an infinite combination of these three colors, we human beings see it. […] A country starts out from a name and a flag, and it then becomes them, just as a man fulfils his destiny."
After Miranda later designed his flag based on this conversation, he happily recalled seeing a fresco by Lazzaro Tavarone in the Palazzo Belimbau in Genoa that depicted Christopher Columbus unfurling a similar-colored flag in Veragua during his fourth voyage.
In his military diary, Miranda gave another source of inspiration: the yellow, blue and red standard of the Burgers' Guard (Bürgerwache) of Hamburg, which he also saw during his travels in Germany. The idea of the flag is documented in his 1801 plan for an army to liberate Spanish America, which he submitted unsuccessfully to the British cabinet. In it Miranda requested the materials for "ten flags, whose colours shall be red, yellow and blue, in three zones."
The symbolism traditionally ascribed to the colors are that the yellow band stands for the wealth of the land, the red for courage, and the blue for the independence from Spain, or "golden" America separated from bloody Spain by the deep blue sea.
During the first half of the XIX century, seven stars were added to the flag to represent the seven signatories to the Venezuelan declaration of independence, being the provinces of Caracas, Cumaná, Barcelona, Barinas, Margarita, Mérida, and Trujillo.
In 2006 the President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez announced plans to add an eighth star to the flag of Venezuela to bring about a much belated fulfillment to Bolívar's 1817 decree. The eighth star represents the Guayana Province, one of the Provinces of Venezuela at the time of the declaration of independence.
Centered, on the background, a little to the right side, is a corvette Leander.
Version by Berend Zitman
The Leander was the corvette used by Francisco de Miranda during his first expedition to Venezuela in 1806. He had on board 17 to 18 guns and displaced 200 tons. It was built in 1800 by "Stel Alcarguel, Greenock, Scotland, Buchanan, Steven & Co." out of Glasgow, later called "Dennistoun, Buchanan & Co."
It had served as merchant ship and also to smuggle weapons to Haiti. In his last filibuster invasion to Haiti waters, it was arrested by a French privateer in 1803, off the coast of Barbados, who took him to the island of Guadeloupe (French possession), and there was bought by a New York shipping firm and registered under American flag.
Then it was hired in New York by Francisco de Miranda in November 1805, from its owner, operator and American smuggler Samuel G. Ogden with the help of Colonel William Stephens Smith, inspector of the port. Miranda did renamed the corvette in honor of his son "Leandro.1"
After the failure of the naval expedition of Miranda in Ocumare de la Costa and La Vela de Coro, the Leander corvette arrived in Trinidad by the frigate HMS Seine under British flag, which was placed there for sale to pay for costs together with any load. Finally, it was sold at public auction and the money to the men, who were on board, was paid.
Centered, on the left side, is a triangle for visually impaired people.
Denominations in numeral and in words are at the top. In numerals are twice at lower part of banknote.
Revers:
Centered are Tonina or Inia geoffrensis.
The Amazon river dolphin, or pink river dolphin, Inia geoffrensis, is a freshwater river dolphin endemic to the Orinoco, Amazon and Araguaia/Tocantins River systems of Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. It was previously listed as a vulnerable species by the IUCN due to pollution, overfishing, excessive boat traffic, and habitat loss, but in 2011 it was changed to data deficient due to a lack of current information about threats, ecology, and population numbers and trends.
Other common names of the species include boto, boto cor-de-rosa, boto vermelho, bouto, bufeo, tonina, and pink dolphin.
The two currently recognized species are:
I. g. geoffrensis - distributed in the Amazon and Araguaia/Tocantins basins (excluding the Madeira River drainage, upstream of the Teotonio Rapids in Rondônia)
I. g. humboldtiana - distributed in the Orinoco basin
I. boliviensis - distributed in the Bolivian subbasin of the Amazon basin upstream of the Teotonio Rapids in Rondônia
The Amazon river dolphin is closely related to the newly identified Araguaian river dolphin, which is believed to have become physically separated and diverged into two separate species. Araguaian botos have fewer rows of teeth than their closely related Amazon botos.
On background are "Gusano Flor" - the Spanish name of bristleworm Bispira brunnea (Type Annelida, family sabellidae).
Marine species belonging to the family of polychaetes, can be found in the Caribbean Sea, Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, on hard substrates like rocks and coral, dock pilings and ship hulls.
Also on background is Parque Nacional Médanos de Coro.
Médanos de Coro National Park (Parque Nacional Los Médanos de Coro) is a Venezuelan national park located in the state of Falcón, near the city of Coro on the road that leads to Paraguaná. The National Park was created in 1974.
The Médanos park lies on the Isthmus of Médanos and covers 91.280 hm² of desert and coastal habitat, including salt marshes. It is made up of three zones: an alluvial plain, formed by the delta of the Mitare River and some smaller streams; an aeolian plain, constituted of three type of dunes; and a littoral plain with a belt of mangrove swamps. The massive sand dunes, known as Médanos, spread over an area of approximately 5 by 30 kilometers. They can reach 40 meters in height and are constantly transformed by the unrelenting wind. Rainfall is rare, thus flora consists of little more than thorny shrubs. The park is an Important Bird Area. Other fauna is scarce; the park is home mainly to lizards, rabbits, anteaters and foxes. Visitors can wander amongst the dunes by camel (imported many years ago), and the park is easily reached by bus or taxi from Coro.
During the severe floods that struck Venezuela in December 1999 ("Vargas tragedy", being especially devastating in Vargas State), the heavy rain formed four lagoons in the dunes; a circumstance that the park guards had never witnessed before.
On the left side is Venezuelan coat of arms.
The current coat of arms of Venezuela was primarily approved by the Congress on April 18, 1836, undergoing small modifications through history, reaching the present version.
The coat of arms was established in the Law of the National Flag, Shield and Anthem (Ley de Bandera, Escudo e Himno Nacionales), passed on February 17, 1954, by the military governor of Venezuela, Marcos Pérez Jiménez. The shield is divided in the colors of the national flag. In the dexter chief, on a red field, wheat represents the union of the 20 states of the Republic existing at the time and the wealth of the nation. In sinister chief, on a yellow field, weapons (a sword, a sabre and three lances) and two national flags are tied by a branch of laurel, as a symbol of triumph in war. In base, on a deep blue field, a wild white horse (perhaps representing Simón Bolívar's white horse Palomo) runs free, an emblem of independence and freedom.
Above the shield are two crossed cornucopias (horns of plenty), pouring out wealth. The shield is flanked by an olive branch and another of palm, both tied at the bottom of the coat with a large band that represents the national tricolour (yellow for the nation’s wealth, blue for the ocean separating Venezuela from Spain, and red for the blood and courage of the people). The following captions appear in golden letters on the blue stripe:
19 de Abril de 1810 (April 19, 1810) 20 de Febrero de 1859 (February 20, 1859)
Independencia (Independence) Federación (Federation)
República Bolivariana de Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela)
On the right and left sides are the Compass roses.
A compass rose, sometimes called a windrose, or Rose of the Winds, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions: North, East, South, and West and their intermediate points. It is also the term for the graduated markings found on the traditional magnetic compass.
Micro print "Banco Central De Venezuela" is a little to the right from center.
Lots of denominations in numerals are on the left and right sides. In numeral and in words in lower right corner, only in words in lower left corner.
Comments:
Security thread with abbreviations of Bank - BCV.
The banknote printer name is shown as "Casa de la Moneda - Venezuela", however banknotes are printed at many foreign printers and Venezuelan Mint. At the beginning, there were to cover the print production requirement for the Monetary Redenomination, later reason is unknown.
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