New Currency

I have written a number of blog posts about the new designs for Mexican banknotes.  In fact, I wrote several posts about the new 50-peso bill which was issued in 2021.  It won an award that year from the International Bank Note Society as the most beautiful bill of the year.

Beautiful or not, after two years I still had not seen the new 50-peso note.  That is, until this trip.  It seems that the bill is now in general circulation because I have received not one, but two of them in my change.

One side of the note shows an axolotl, an endangered salamander-like species which lives in the canals of Xochimilco on the south side of Mexico City.

I never expected to see the new 1000-peso note which was issued in 2020, and which is the highest denomination in circulation.  But last week, Alejandro received one.

As with all of the new designs, the front deals with Mexican history.  The 1000-peso bill features the portraits of three people who figured in the Mexican Revolution of 1910.  Carmen Serdán (left) was a revolutionary who opposed the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.  When the family home was attacked by government troops, she was wounded, captured and imprisoned.  Hermila Galindo was a writer, feminist and supporter of the Revolution.  Francisco Madero led the movement against the Díaz dictatorship and became the 37th President of Mexico.  He was murdered in a counter-revolutionary coup d'état.

The back of all the new bills shows one of Mexico's diverse ecosystems.  The 1000-peso note shows the tropical rainforests of southeastern Mexico.

It has a jaguar, ceiba trees, and the Mayan ruins of Calakmul, deep in the forests of the state of Campeche.

Alejandro will have to exchange this bill at the bank, because even though its value in U.S. currency is $58, most stores and businesses will not accept it.