1 Real Boliviano

Banco de San Juan was one of several Argentine provincial banks authorized under the 1854 banking legislation that allowed provinces to charter their own note-issuing institutions. The Catamarca branch arrangement was an extension of that system — San Juan extending its circulation reach into a neighboring province rather than Catamarca establishing its own bank. Whether notes issued under this branch designation actually circulated widely in Catamarca is doubtful; the province was poor, sparsely populated, and commerce largely ran on barter and coin.

The "Real Boliviano" denomination reflects how thoroughly Bolivian silver still anchored northwestern Argentine commerce in the 1870s, years after the peso had nominally taken over.