Catalog
1 1/2 Real Plata Boliviana
| Issuer | Banco de Londres y Río de la Plata, Rosario |
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| Year | 1866 |
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| Composition | Cotton paper |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is typeset in letterpress style with the bank title BANCO DE LONDRES Y RIO DE LA PLATA across the upper portion in large bold capitals. Four circular guilloche vignettes occupy the corners, each bearing the fractional numeral 1½. A central panel carries the value inscription VALE POR UN REAL Y MEDIO within a bordered frame, below which a handwritten text line references the Plata Boliviana guarantee, followed by the place and date inscription for Rosario and a manuscript signature. |
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| Reverse description | The reverse is unprinted or plain, consistent with the simple letterpress production typical of early Argentine provincial private bank issues of the 1860s. |
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| Comments |
The Banco de Londres y Río de la Plata was a British joint-stock bank established in Buenos Aires in 1862, with the Rosario branch opening shortly after as the city grew into a major commercial hub along the Paraná river trade routes. This note predates Argentina's unified national currency by nearly two decades — the peso moneda nacional wasn't introduced until 1881 — meaning provincial and foreign-chartered banks issued their own paper in a patchwork of competing denominations.
The denomination itself is the curiosity here. The real plata boliviana was a unit inherited from the old Spanish colonial system and was already an awkward anachronism by the mid-1860s. Issuing in fractional reales suggests this note was aimed squarely at small retail transactions in a city where coin shortages were chronic.