4 Reales

The Banco de Londres y Río de la Plata was a British-owned institution operating in Argentina under a concession from the provincial government of Córdoba — not the national government in Buenos Aires. This matters because provincial banking in 1860s Argentina was deeply fragmented, with each province empowered to charter its own banks and authorize its own paper currency, resulting in a chaotic plurality of issues that frequently traded at discount outside their home territory.

The 4 reales denomination is a colonial survival. By 1869 Argentina was officially on a peso system, but reales remained in common reckoning in the interior provinces long after formal metrication, and provincial banks issued to meet local expectations rather than national uniformity.

Córdoba branch issues of this bank are considerably scarcer than the Buenos Aires output.