Description and research notes
A fully issued 2000 reales vellón banknote from the Banco de Zaragoza dated 14 May 1857, Serie E, serial number 00500. Classified under Pick S455, this note represents the highest denomination from Zaragoza known to have entered active circulation. Its survival is an exceptional anomaly: most high-value private-bank issues from this period were redeemed rapidly and destroyed, leaving only a microscopic population of true circulation-authorized notes.
The Banco de Zaragoza, active from 1857 to 1874, produced one of the most architecturally consistent and visually elaborate provincial banknote series in Spain. Its structured emission of reales de vellón comprised Serie A (100 reales), Serie B (200 reales), Serie C (500 reales), Serie D (1000 reales), Serie E (2000 reales), and Serie F (4000 reales). Of all these, issued Serie E notes are among the hardest to obtain; almost all known survivors show the characteristic circular cancellation punch used by the bank to void redeemed notes.
Serial No. 00500 forms one of only two issued specimens of this denomination preserved in the collection—the other being No. 00589 (see item 'spain-1857-banco-de-zaragoza-2000-reales-serie-e-00589-issued-note'). These two pieces are likely the only confirmed surviving issued examples outside Spanish institutional holdings, if any such institutional examples exist at all.
The engraving and typographic layout match precisely those of the Madrid-school private printer employed by the Banco de Zaragoza. Despite circulation wear and cancellation, the note remains structurally sound and fully legible, carrying the complete manuscript signatures required for legal tender status.
Based strictly on observed examples, issued Pick S455 notes qualify as R8—extremely rare. With both No. 00500 and No. 00589 held within the same collection, the present pair represents the strongest documented surviving assemblage of Zaragoza’s highest real-value circulating note.