5 Pesos

The Banco y Casa de Moneda de Buenos Ayres occupies a peculiar position in Argentine monetary history — it was simultaneously a bank and a mint, a dual function reflecting the chronic institutional fragility of Buenos Aires province in the decades before national monetary unification. This note predates the founding of the Banco de la República Argentina by nearly three decades and circulated in a period when provincial and national currency authority were still bitterly contested.

The PS prefix in the Pick catalogue indicates this is a privately-issued or state-chartered provincial note, distinct from national emission. By 1864, Buenos Aires had already weathered multiple currency crises driven by paper overissue, and public confidence in provincial paper remained thin.