10 Reales Silver Pattern

Paraguay's monetary system in 1864 was effectively theoretical — the country had almost no functioning coinage of its own, operating largely on foreign currency and barter. This pattern was struck the same year Francisco Solano López drew Paraguay into the catastrophic War of the Triple Alliance against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, a conflict that would kill an estimated 60–70% of the Paraguayan population by its end in 1870. Whether the pattern was intended as a foundation for a proper national coinage that the war then made impossible remains an open question, but no regular-issue 10 Reales ever entered circulation.