Catalog
1/2 Real Moneda Boliviana
| Issuer | Banco de Mendoza |
|---|---|
| Year | 1877 |
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| Reference(s) | P#S1748 |
| Obverse description | Blue intaglio-printed note with an allegorical female bust vignette at left, the figure helmeted in classical style. The bank title EL BANCO DE MENDOZA appears within an ornate guilloche panel at upper centre, with the denomination MEDIO REAL set in a central cartouche; a MEDIO REAL underprint runs along the marginal borders. The central field carries a handwritten promise-to-pay text in Spanish, dated Enero 1° de 1877, with a red serial number at upper left. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | EL BANCO DE MENDOZA MEDIO REAL Pagará al portador y a la vista Medio Real moneda boliviana cuyo equivalente en moneda de ley Enero 1° de 1877 POR EL BANCO: |
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| Comments |
Banco de Mendoza was a provincial Argentine bank operating under the brief permissive window created by the 1872 banking law, which allowed provincial institutions to issue their own notes before federal consolidation ended that practice in the 1890s. A fractional denomination like this — half a Bolivian real — points to chronic small-change shortages in Cuyo that persisted well into the late nineteenth century, forcing banks to issue scrip at sub-peso levels that national coinage simply couldn't fill.
R. Simon was a Buenos Aires-based printer handling commercial and financial work during this period, well removed from the prestige security printing houses of London or Paris. The PS# placement in the Specialized catalog reflects its provincial quasi-bank status rather than formal central authorization.