20 Centavos Fuertes

The Banco de Cuyo was one of several provincial Argentine banks authorized to issue currency under the 1854 banking law, operating out of Mendoza to serve the western provinces. "Fuertes" — strong pesos — distinguished these notes from the depreciated paper pesos corrientes then flooding circulation in Buenos Aires and elsewhere. The distinction mattered enormously to merchants trading across the Andes.

Provincial bank issues from this period were often printed in very small quantities and redeemed quickly as institutional failures mounted through the late 1860s. The Banco de Cuyo collapsed before the national currency unification of 1883, making surviving fractional notes genuinely rare.