1 Centavo Fuertes Pattern

Argentina's coinage in 1880 was in genuine disorder — the country operated without a unified national currency, with provincial banks issuing competing paper money and metallic coinage arriving piecemeal from multiple foreign mints. This pattern was part of a broader effort to rationalize the system ahead of the monetary consolidation that would eventually produce the peso moneda nacional in 1881. The "fuertes" denomination itself was already being rendered obsolete by the time these patterns were struck.

CJ#40 is a pattern issue, meaning it never reached circulation — surviving examples passed through official channels or collections rather than pockets.