20 Centavos

Banco Mauá y Ca. was the Argentine branch of the financial empire built by Irineu Evangelista de Sousa, the Brazilian Baron of Mauá — one of the most aggressive private banking expansions in nineteenth-century South America. The Rosario branch operated during a period when provincial and private banks routinely issued their own paper, years before any centralized Argentine monetary authority existed to regulate or suppress the practice.

The PS prefix in the Pick reference confirms private issue status. At 20 centavos, this is a fractional denomination — small change in paper form, the kind of note that circulated hard and survived poorly.