Caribbean || P-FX49 10 pesos convertibles CUC

 10-peso tourist note that doubled as a manifesto — the Energétic Revolution on the back was Castro’s signature infrastructure campaign, printed on a currency most Cubans couldn’t legally hold.

Banknote Characteristics

• Varieties:
  • P-FX49a (2006, sig. Francisco Soberón Valdés)
  • P-FX49b (2007, sig. Francisco Soberón Valdés)
  • P-FX49c (2008, sig. Francisco Soberón Valdés)
  • P-FX49d (2011, sig. Ernesto Medina Villavirán)
  • P-FX49e (2012, sig. Ernesto Medina Villavirán)
  • P-FX49f (2013, sig. Ernesto Medina Villavirán)
• Color: Multicolor; red series and serial numbers
• Front: Monument to Máximo Gómez in Havana; Braille code; watermark zone
• Back: Electric power plant; allegory of the Energy Revolution
• Watermark: José Martí and electrotype 10
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 150 × 70 mm (5.91 × 2.76 in)
• Issuing entity: Banco Central de Cuba
• Printer: Impresos de Seguridad, Havana
• Demonetized: 1 January 2021
• References: P-FX49
• Currency: Cuban convertible peso (CUC, 1994–2020)
• Country: Cuba — Second Republic (1959–date)

About Cuba

• Capital: Havana (city ~2.1 million; metro ~2.4 million)
• Population: ~11.2 million (UN 2023) — similar to Belgium or Ohio
• Area: 109,884 km² (42,426 mi²) — similar to Bulgaria or Virginia
• GDP per capita at PPP: Difficult to measure reliably due to dual economy and state pricing; IMF estimates ~$12,000–15,000 USD — ranks roughly 100th out of 193 globally
• Main exports: Nickel, sugar, tobacco, rum, pharmaceuticals, medical services
• Borders: No land borders; Florida Straits to the north, Caribbean Sea to the south
• Official languages: Spanish (~100%)
• Spoken languages: Haitian Creole (~300,000 in the east)
• Sovereignty:
  • Taíno and Ciboney indigenous peoples (pre-1492)
  • Spanish colony (1492–1898)
  • US military occupation (1898–1902)
  • First Republic (1902–1959), including the Batista dictatorship (1952–1959) — constitution suspended, Congress dissolved, rule by decree
  • Revolutionary government (1959–date) — initially nationalist and anti-imperialist; declared socialist 1961; explicitly communist with founding of the Communist Party of Cuba 1965

A Dominican who died for Cuba, twice

Máximo Gómez was born in the Dominican Republic and became the most important military commander of Cuba’s independence wars — a foreigner who gave his life to someone else’s revolution. He led the mambí forces through two wars against Spain, pioneered guerrilla tactics that would influence insurgencies for a century, and refused any political office after victory. His monument in Havana faces the sea. His face on this note faces the tourist economy he never lived to see.

Castro put a power plant on money tourists would touch

The Energy Revolution was Castro’s mid-2000s campaign to replace aging Soviet-era power infrastructure — distributing millions of energy-efficient appliances, building new generating capacity, and reducing blackouts that had plagued the island since the Special Period. Putting a power plant on a tourist banknote was a statement: Cuba’s revolution was still ongoing, still building, still worth advertising to every visitor who opened their wallet.

The note was printed in Havana itself — by Impresos de Seguridad, Cuba’s own security printer — one of the few countries that prints its own currency domestically rather than outsourcing to Leipzig or London.

Own a note from the economy within the economy

The CUC was abolished on 1 January 2021. This 10-peso note — printed in Havana, featuring a Dominican general and a power plant, issued in six varieties across eight years — is now a collectible from a monetary system that no longer exists.

A foreigner’s monument. A revolution’s power grid. Ten pesos that only visitors could spend.