Honduras P103d 500 Lempiras 2019 UNC "a Golden Mind and a Gold Mine"

A high-denomination note from Honduras honoring one of its greatest 19th-century intellectuals, set against the ruins of a silver mine that once powered the country's economy.

Front

• Colors: magenta and gray on multicolor underprint
• Portrait: Ramón Rosa (1848–1893), jurist, philosopher, and architect of Honduran liberal reform, center right
• Vignette: façade of La Merced Church, Tegucigalpa, at right
• Security thread: windowed security thread with demetalized BCH 500
• Latent image: Ramón Rosa printed over green vignette
• Registration device: post box
• Serial numbers: two serial numbers, left one with ascending size
• Text: REPÚBLICA DE HONDURAS / BANCO CENTRAL DE HONDURAS / 12 DE JUNIO DE 2019 / QUINIENTOS LEMPIRAS
• Signatures: Wilfredo Cerrato R. / Aracely O'Hara Guillén / Rocío I. Tábora Morales)

Back

• Colors: multicolor
• Central scene: aerial view of Minas del Rosario de San Juancito, Francisco Morazán Department (1893)
• Text: BANCO CENTRAL DE HONDURAS / QUINIENTOS LEMPIRAS / 500

Other Characteristics

• Varieties: you may receive any variety: P103a (2012); P103b (2014); P103c (2016); P103d (2019) — this note
• Catalog numbers: P103d; TBB# B354b; Numista N#239715
• Watermark: Ramón Rosa and electrotype BCH
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 156 × 67 mm
• Issuing entity: Central Bank of Honduras (Banco Central de Honduras)
• Printer: Oberthur Fiduciaire, France (1984–date)
• Currency: Honduran Lempira (1931–date)

Ramón Rosa: The Mind Behind Modern Honduras

Ramón Rosa (1848–1893) was the intellectual engine of Honduras's Liberal Reform era. As Secretary of State under President Marco Aurelio Soto, he drafted the country's civil and penal codes, reorganized public education, and helped modernize the Honduran state from the ground up. A philosopher, jurist, and essayist, Rosa believed that education was the foundation of national progress — a conviction that earned him a place on Honduras's highest-denomination circulating note. He died in 1893, the same year the San Juancito mine on the reverse was photographed.

The Mine That Built a Nation

The reverse depicts the Minas del Rosario de San Juancito — a silver and gold mining complex in the mountains of Francisco Morazán operated by the New York and Honduras Rosario Mining Company from 1880 to 1954. At its peak it was one of the most productive silver mines in Central America, generating enormous export revenue and drawing thousands of workers to a company town deep in the cloud forest. Today the ruins are a protected historical site adjacent to La Tigra National Park, just 22 km from Tegucigalpa.

Own this note and you hold Honduras's liberal golden age in your hands — a reformist intellectual, a colonial church, and the mountain mine that financed a nation's modernization.

About Honduras

• Origin of name: Spanish for "depths" — Christopher Columbus reportedly exclaimed "Gracias a Dios que hemos salido de esas honduras" after navigating treacherous waters off the northern coast in 1502
• Capital: Tegucigalpa (city pop. ~1.4 million; metro ~1.9 million)
  • Origin of name of Tegucigalpa: From Nahuatl, variously interpreted as "silver hills" or "place of painted rocks" — a nod to the region's mineral wealth
• Population: ~10.6 million (UN 2024) — comparable to Michigan or Georgia
• Area: 112,492 km² / 43,433 mi² — slightly larger than Tennessee
• GDP per capita (PPP): ~$6,800 (IMF 2024)
• Main exports: coffee (#1 export), bananas, palm oil, shrimp, textiles/apparel (maquiladoras)
• Borders: Guatemala (west), El Salvador (southwest), Nicaragua (east/southeast), Caribbean Sea (north), Pacific Ocean (south, Gulf of Fonseca)
• Official/spoken languages: Spanish (official); indigenous languages including Garifuna and Miskito
• Ethnicities: Mestizo (~90%), Indigenous (~7%), Garifuna (~2%), Afro-Honduran (~1%)
• Memberships: United Nations (1945); OAS; SICA; WTO; CAFTA-DR free trade agreement with US
• Sovereignty: Independent from Spain 15 September 1821; fully independent republic 1838 after dissolution of the Federal Republic of Central America

Honduras Unfiltered

• Most coup-prone nation in the Americas: Honduras has experienced more than 300 attempted or successful coups since independence — including as recently as 2009, when President Manuel Zelaya was removed by the military in his pajamas.
• Banana republic — literally: The term "banana republic" was coined partly with Honduras in mind, where United Fruit Company once controlled vast swaths of land, infrastructure, and political influence in the early 20th century.
• La Tigra: the cloud forest above the capital: Just 22 km from Tegucigalpa sits La Tigra National Park, a cloud forest that supplies much of the capital's drinking water and contains the ruins of the San Juancito mine depicted on this note.
• Scarlet Macaw as national bird: The Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) is Honduras's national bird — once nearly extinct in the country, it has been successfully reintroduced in several protected areas.
• Coffee powerhouse: Honduras is the largest coffee exporter in Central America and among the top 10 globally, with high-altitude growing regions producing specialty beans increasingly sought by third-wave roasters.