10 000 Guaranies Guarani value on reverse

The 10,000 Guaraní denomination was introduced in 1982 as inflation steadily eroded the purchasing power of lower notes — by the mid-1990s it had become a routine transaction note rather than the large-denomination bill it was on introduction. Paraguay's Stroessner-era monetary policy kept official exchange rates artificially stable while parallel markets told a different story, and the long print run spanning nearly two decades reflects that uncomfortable balance between issued face value and real-world utility.

Thomas De La Rue held the Banco Central del Paraguay contract across multiple series during this period. The watermark remains the sole security feature — modest even by the standards of the time.