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5 Pesos

Issuer Banco Nacional de las Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata
Year 1834
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Composition Cotton paper
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Obverse description Cream-coloured letterpress note with the bank title 'BANCO NACIONAL / DE LAS PROVINCIAS UNIDAS DEL / RIO DE LA PLATA' arched across the upper field, flanking a central allegorical vignette of two seated figures; denomination counters reading '5 PESOS' appear at upper left and lower centre. The promise-to-pay text in cursive script — 'Promete pagar al portador y a la vista CINCO PESOS en Moneda Metálica' — occupies the body of the note, with an oval arms vignette at left and small oval denomination counters in the lower corners. Place and date 'Buenos Ayres' are printed below the main text, with two manuscript signatures above the legend 'POR EL PRESIDENTE Y DIRECTORES'.
Obverse lettering BANCO NACIONAL
DE LAS PROVINCIAS UNIDAS DEL
RIO DE LA PLATA
5 PESOS
Promete pagar al portador y a la vista
CINCO PESOS en Moneda Metálica
Buenos Ayres
POR EL PRESIDENTE Y DIRECTORES
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The Banco Nacional de las Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata was the second major banking institution of post-independence Argentina, chartered in 1826 partly to finance the costly war with Brazil over the Banda Oriental. It lasted barely a decade. A catastrophic run on deposits, mounting government debt, and convertibility failures forced its liquidation in 1836, making any surviving note from its final years of operation genuinely rare by circumstance rather than by collector fashion.

Printed locally in Buenos Aires rather than sent abroad to London or Paris as many contemporary South American issues were — a detail that shows in the cruder typography relative to, say, Chilean or Peruvian contemporaries of the same period.