Here is another state-of-the arts website that is as pretty to view as it is full of information and many illustrations of Peruvian banknotes both old and new. This site is still under construction, and hopefully, as time passes, Sr. Corrales will add more to this site since he has left a lot of space open for further submissions. The present only gives the viewer a nice taste of more notes, back-ground, and stories to come.

Presently, this site is written mainly in Spanish, but some of the notations are translated into English. All of the explanations and history are in Spanish, and it is hoped that the author of this site will add at least some English in the future. This site is divided into twelve sub-groups. The active collector will find most of the "meaty" information in the first four or five groups. The viewer can easily go from one group to another while in any of these subgroups.

The first subgroup is entitled Historia del Billete Peruano or "History of the Peruvian Banknote." This section is divided into chronological periods, which can be accessed at the touch of a mouse click. When the user clicks on one of these periods, three divisions appear for each time period: 1) a short numismatic history of the period; 2) a list of banknotes issued during this time period. The data includes the denomination, printer, issues (usually blank), colors, and sizes; 3) various beautifully reproduced pictures of sample notes of that period.

In the last, above-mentioned section, all of the notes displayed are shown obverse side. On many of these notes, however, if the viewer places the cursor on the obverse side and clicks once, the reverse side appears. Other times the cursor will turn into a hand, and a larger, more printable image of the banknote appears for the viewer. These are very nice touches, indeed, for some of the reverse sides are much more attractive and interesting, in this evaluator's opinion, than the obverse sides. This is a vertitable feast for the eyes. To the left of each screen in a scrolled format appears a list of the Peruvian banks of that time period.

The next section is El Arte en los Billetes Peruanos, or "Art in Peruvian Banknotes." Featured here are engravings, some allegorical and some showing mining activities in Peru. Of particular note is the sign that says "Campania Nacitonal de Billetes de Banco, Nueva York", or National Banknote Company of New York. These faces and designs represent just a few of those that appeared on the obverse and reverse sides of many banknotes featured on this site.

Sr. Corrales states that this section is still under construction, and it is hoped that Sr. Corrales will expand this site of engraved artwork at his discretion. This site represents the real beauty and art that banknote collecting is all about. This is a most original and unique idea in banknote display, and the reviewer would look forward to more of a long lost art, namely engraving, on this Internet site.

The next section is entitled Abreviaturas, or "Abbreviations." This page is a listing of the printing companies that the Peruvian governments utilized through the years to print their paper money. The reviewer went off site to the Google search engine and tried to access some of the printing companies listed. Some searches were successful. A researcher could very easily obtain more information regarding the printing companies used in these banknotes.

Again in the future, the reviewer wishes that Sr. Carillo write some lines in the background of the printing companies - both past as well as present - especially those located in Peru itself. The Iquitos location, Imprenta el Oriente looked very interesting since this city is located squarely in the middle of the Amazonian jungle.

On the left side of this page is a listing of the various trademarks used by these printing companies for the Peruvian governments - a nice touch, indeed!

The next column box down on the home page is Novedades, or "News." This is another page under construction; it offers transparent pages and the like for sale.

Libros, Folletos Catalogos, or "Books, Pamphlets, and Catalogs" follows. Sr. Carillo offers the reader an ample selection of books for sale and lists an e-mail site where the reader can write him for more information. All of these books for sale are printed in Spanish.

The next two sections - Intercambios (Exchanges) and Enlaces (Links) list items for sale and provide thumbnails so that the reader can be guided to other sites of interest.

The last section is entitled Venta de Billetes or "Banknote Sale." This is a small collection of notes for sale at this time. The next section is Condiciones de Venta or "Selling Terms," which describes how a person would buy bills directly from him in Peru. The website author provides an email address in Contactame or "Contact me."

For those collectors and/or researchers out there who want a deeper understanding of Peruvian paper money as well as a visual treat, this is a most worthy and informative site. Sr. Carrillo has done an excellent job of presenting an organized and highly readable form of Peruvian banknote numismatics from its colonial beginning down to the present day. Much of his website is still under construction, and the topics presented here lend themselves to even more interesting material that can be presented in the future. Kudos goes to him in the expectation that we will see bigger and better things in the future.

One bothering item about this site; many times, the reviewer was cut off from his site on his Yahoo! Geocities Site. A message read that this web site had exceeded its alloted data transfer and that the reader would have to return another time to complete a total perusal of this most interesting site. It is hoped that Sr. Carrillo can rectify this problem in the near future.

Other than this one rather annoying problem, it was a pleasure to peruse this site. This is one web page that possesses a lot of potential! If readers have a particular web site to be reviewed, please send all information to: w9jdx@cybology.com