10 Pesos Bolivianos

Banco Rio Cuarto was one of the short-lived provincial banks that emerged in Argentina during the 1870s banking free-for-all, when individual provinces and private institutions could charter their own note-issuing banks with minimal federal oversight. The 1826 national bank experiment had collapsed decades earlier, leaving a vacuum that regional banks rushed to fill — often with inadequate reserves and shaky redemption guarantees.

The denomination in pesos bolivianos is a telling detail. By the 1870s, Bolivian silver coinage still circulated widely across the interior Argentine provinces, and quoting notes in that unit was a practical concession to local commerce rather than any formal monetary relationship with Bolivia.