This paper presents a hand-shape biometric system based on a novel feature extraction methodology using the morphological pattern spectrum or pecstrum. Identification experiments were carried out using the obtained feature vectors as an input to some recognition systems using neural networks and support vector machine (SVM) techniques, obtaining in average an identification of 98.5%. The verification case was analyzed through an Euclidean distance classifier, obtaining the acceptance rate (FAR) and false rejection rate (FRR) of the system for some K-fold cross validation experiments. In average, an Equal Error Rate of 2.85% was obtained. The invariance to rotation and position properties of the pecstrum allow the system to avoid a fixed hand position using pegs, as is the case in other reported systems. The results indicate that the pattern spectrum represents a good alternative of feature extraction for biometric applications.