Catalog
10 Centavos Fuertes Banco del Paraguay
| Issuer | Banco del Paraguay |
|---|---|
| Year | 1879-1882 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black letterpress on white paper with a guilloche underprint throughout. The central vignette presents two cattle in a pastoral landscape, flanked by an oval cartouche bearing the denomination numeral '0.10' at left and a rosette at lower right. The bank title 'EL BANCO DEL PARAGUAY' runs in bold display type across the top, with 'DIEZ CENTAVOS FUERTES' in a solid black band below the vignette, while a repeated 'DIEZ' micro-text border frames all four margins and the lower portion carries the place-and-date text, serial number, and manuscript signatures above the 'INSPECTOR' and 'DIRECTOR' designation lines. |
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| Obverse lettering | EL BANCO DEL PARAGUAY 10 Pagará al portador y á la vista DIEZ CENTAVOS FUERTES 0.10 en monedas de oro ó plata sellada de curso legal. Asunción, 1ro de Enero de 1882. (Translation: The Bank of Paraguay Will pay to bearer, at sight, Ten Centavos Fuertes in coins of gold or sealed silver, of legal tender. Asunción, January 1st., 1882.) |
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| Comments |
The Banco del Paraguay was established in 1871 under a national charter — one of the first institutional attempts to rebuild a financial system after the catastrophic War of the Triple Alliance, which had killed an estimated half to two-thirds of Paraguay's total population and left the country without functioning economic infrastructure. These small-denomination notes were part of a fractional currency series intended to address the chronic shortage of hard coin in everyday commerce.
Litografía Nacional in Buenos Aires handled the printing, a practical necessity given that Paraguay had no domestic printing capacity capable of producing banknotes at the time. The "Fuertes" designation distinguished the currency from earlier devalued emissions.