2 Pesos Bolivianos

Banco Mauá y Cía. was the Argentine arm of the commercial empire built by Irineu Evangelista de Sousa, the Brazilian financier ennobled as the Barão de Mauá. The Rosario branch operated during a period of near-total dependence on private bank issuance in Argentina — the national government had no functional central authority over currency until decades later, and provincial and private institutions filled that void with their own notes.

The American Bank Note Company was the dominant supplier to South American issuers at this period, and the quality of engraving was a deliberate commercial signal to a public accustomed to poorly printed local issues. Mauá's Argentine banking operations collapsed in the financial crisis of 1875, making surviving notes from this 1868 series genuinely scarce.