10 Pesos

The Caja de Conversión was Argentina's currency board, established in 1890 in the wreckage of the Baring Crisis — a sovereign debt collapse that nearly bankrupted the country and wiped out Baring Brothers in London. Its mandate was simple: maintain a fixed peso-to-gold exchange rate and issue notes backed by gold reserves alone. This note belongs to the long stable period before the board suspended convertibility in 1914 at the outbreak of war, a suspension that was only partially and briefly reversed before the 1929 crash ended the experiment permanently.

Mouchon is better known as the engraver of France's 1900 Mouchon stamp type. His involvement here reflects the ABNCo's practice of contracting European artists for prestige intaglio work during this period.