2 Pesos Fuertes Administración de la Deuda Pública

Paraguay's public debt administration issuing circulating paper currency is itself the story here. By 1899, the country was still financially crippled by the aftermath of the War of the Triple Alliance, which had killed the majority of the male population and left the economy in ruins. The Administración de la Deuda Pública was empowered to issue notes precisely because the state had no functioning central bank capable of doing so — these notes were essentially debt instruments pressed into service as everyday currency.

ABNC produced the series from New York. The watermark security feature was a deliberate choice for a country where counterfeiting of weak-state paper had been a persistent problem throughout the preceding decades.