5 Australes

Tucumán's provincial austral notes were an emergency response to the near-total collapse of liquidity in Argentina's interior during the mid-1980s. With hyperinflation eroding the national currency faster than the Banco Central could supply physical notes, several provinces issued their own quasi-currency — locally redeemable, legally dubious, and politically fraught. Tucumán's series circulated alongside national australes but was frequently refused by merchants outside the province.

Provincial emissions from this period are notoriously short-lived in circulation, which paradoxically makes worn examples more historically honest than surviving crisp ones.