Venezuela P118 50 Bolivares Digitales 2021 UNC H0208

A rich dark-green commemorative note marking the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Carabobo — the decisive land engagement that secured Venezuela’s independence from Spain on June 24, 1821. The highest-denomination note in the original Carabobo commemorative trio, the P-118 pairs a portrait of Simón Bolívar with the Triumphal Arch of Carabobo and Martín Tovar y Tovar’s monumental battle painting.

Front

• Colors: dark green dominant on light-green underprint
• Portrait: Simón Bolívar at bottom
• Inscriptions: República Bolivariana de Venezuela · 50 CINCUENTA BOLÍVARES · 29 DE ABRIL DE 2021 · PAGADEROS AL PORTADOR EN LAS OFICINAS DEL BANCO · PRESIDENTE BCV · PRIMER VICEPRESIDENTE BCV · SIMÓN BOLÍVAR
• Signatures: Calixto Ortega Sánchez (Gov. BCV) · Sohail Hernández (First Vice President BCV)

Back

• Colors: multicolor on cream underprint
• Left: Venezuelan coat of arms
• Center-left: Triumphal Arch of Carabobo (Arco de Triunfo de Carabobo)
• Center: painting of the Battle of Carabobo by Martín Tovar y Tovar
• Inscriptions: Banco Central de Venezuela · ARCO DE TRIUNFO – BATALLA DE CARABOBO · 200 AÑOS · 1821–2021 · Batalla de Carabobo · CINCUENTA BOLÍVARES 50 · CASA DE LA MONEDA – VENEZUELA

Other Characteristics

• Varieties: P-118 — this note (single known variety)
• Catalog numbers: P-118 (W118 per BankNote Museum) · TBB B388 · NCV bbcv50bsd-aa · Numista N#330909
• Watermark: Simón Bolívar portrait and electrotype “BCV”
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 156 × 69 mm
• Issued: October 1, 2021
• Issuing entity: Central Bank of Venezuela (Banco Central de Venezuela)
• Printer: Casa de la Moneda de Venezuela, Maracay, Venezuela (1989–date)
• Demonetized: No — still legal tender
• Signatures: Calixto Ortega Sánchez (Gov. BCV) · Sohail Hernández (First Vice President BCV)
• Currency: Bolívar Digital (2021–date)
• Official language: Spanish

About Venezuela

• Origin of name: “Venezuela” means “Little Venice” in Spanish — named by Amerigo Vespucci in 1499 after seeing indigenous stilt houses over Lake Maracaibo, which reminded him of Venice, Italy
• Capital: Caracas — city population ~3 million; metro population ~5 million
  • Origin of name: Named after the Caracas indigenous people who inhabited the valley; the name’s deeper etymology is disputed but may derive from a local plant or tribal name
• Population: ~28 million (UN 2024) — comparable to Texas
• Area: 916,445 km² (353,841 mi²) — slightly larger than Texas and California combined
• GDP per capita (PPP): ~$17,000 (IMF 2024 est.) — severely depressed from a peak above $30,000 in the early 2010s
• Main exports: crude oil and petroleum products (~95% of export revenue historically), gold, aluminum, steel, chemicals
• Borders: Colombia (west), Brazil (south), Guyana (east); Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean (north)
• Official/spoken language: Spanish; numerous indigenous languages also recognized
• Ethnicities: Mestizo (~51%), White Venezuelan (~43%), Afro-Venezuelan (~4%), Indigenous (~2%)
• Memberships: United Nations (founding member, 1945); OAS (founding member, 1948); OPEC (founding member, 1960); ALBA (2004); Mercosur (suspended since 2017);
• Sovereignty:
  • Pre-colonial — home to Timoto-Cuica, Arawak, and Carib peoples
  • Spanish colonization (1522–1811)
  • Wars of Independence (1811–1823) — Battle of Carabobo (June 24, 1821) was the decisive land victory
  • Gran Colombia (1819–1830) — Venezuela united with Colombia and Ecuador under Bolívar
  • Republic of Venezuela (1830–1999)
  • Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (1999–date) — this note issued during this period

Venezuela Unfiltered

• Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves — yet by the 2020s, output had collapsed by over 80% from its peak
• Hyperinflation reached an estimated 1,000,000% in 2018 — the bolívar has been redenominated three times since 2008, lopping off 14 zeros in total
• An estimated 7–8 million Venezuelans — roughly 25% of the population — have emigrated since 2015
• Lake Maracaibo produces more lightning strikes than anywhere else on Earth — the “Catatumbo Lightning” fires up to 280 times per hour
• Venezuela has won more Miss Universe and Miss World titles than any other country
• The country has the world’s highest waterfall: Angel Falls (Salto Ángel), at 979 meters — nearly 20 times the height of Niagara Falls

The Arch, the Painting, and the Battle

The reverse of this note is one of the most art-historically rich in Venezuelan currency. The Triumphal Arch of Carabobo, built on the battlefield in 1821, is Venezuela’s answer to the Arc de Triomphe — a monument raised on the very ground where independence was won. Beside it, the note reproduces a detail from the vast battle panorama painted by Martín Tovar y Tovar (1827–1902), Venezuela’s greatest 19th-century artist. His monumental canvas — over 10 meters wide — hangs in the Federal Legislative Palace in Caracas and is considered the definitive visual record of the battle. Owning this note is owning a miniature reproduction of that painting, printed on currency.

The Field That Made a Nation

On June 24, 1821, Simón Bolívar’s republican forces routed the Spanish royalist army on the plains of Carabobo in under two hours. General José Antonio Páez led a flanking cavalry charge that shattered the Spanish lines. Venezuela’s independence — declared a decade earlier and nearly extinguished multiple times — was now militarily irreversible. The 50 bolívares denomination makes this the mid-tier note of the Carabobo commemorative series, sitting between the red-brown 20 (P-117) and the purple 100 (P-119) — a complete set worth owning together.

The Bolívar That Keeps Shrinking

This note is denominated in bolívares digitales — Venezuela’s third currency redenomination since 2008. The 50 bolívares digital equals 50,000,000,000,000 (50 trillion) of the original bolívares fuertes. Owning this note is owning a document of one of the most dramatic monetary collapses in modern history — printed by Venezuela’s own Casa de la Moneda in Maracay, the same mint that has watched its currency lose virtually all meaning within a single generation.

Own this note and hold two centuries of Venezuelan pride in your hands — the arch, the painting, the battle, and the beautiful, battered currency of a nation that refuses to stop commemorating its greatest moment.