2 Pesos Banco Nacional

The Banco Nacional de la República Oriental del Uruguay was a short-lived institution, established in 1887 and liquidated by 1896 following a severe banking crisis that brought down several Uruguayan banks simultaneously. This note dates from the bank's founding year, meaning it was issued at the very beginning of an experiment in state-backed banking that lasted less than a decade.

Waterlow & Sons had been printing South American paper currency since the mid-nineteenth century and held contracts across the continent concurrently — the same London facility likely ran Uruguayan, Argentine, and Chilean commissions in close succession during this period.