20 000 Nuevos Pesos Hydroelectricity

Uruguay's early 1980s gold commemorative program was issued under conditions of severe economic duress — the country was in the grip of a military dictatorship and a debt crisis that would force a major currency devaluation in 1982, the year before this coin was struck. The choice to commemorate hydroelectricity was not incidental: the Palmar dam project on the Río Negro was a centerpiece of state infrastructure ambition during the authoritarian period, representing one of the few large-scale public works the regime could point to as a domestic achievement.

The .900 gold standard used here follows Argentine and regional minting convention of the period rather than the purer fineness adopted by most European issues.