10 Lire

Italy's Officina Carte Valori at San Teodoro was the state printing establishment responsible for this series, brought into operation as part of the broader post-unification effort to consolidate paper currency production under domestic control rather than rely on foreign printers. The 1880s were an awkward period for Italian fiduciary circulation — the country had suspended the lira's convertibility to metal in 1866 and would not fully restore it until 1883, meaning notes like this one circulated against a backdrop of ongoing monetary instability.

Pick 13 is among the smaller-denomination state notes of the period and is notably scarce in any collectible condition, largely because low-value circulating paper suffers the hardest use.