5 Pesos Fabulous 15 'El payador'

Part of Argentina's "Fabulosos 15" series, this issue honors the payador — the itinerant gaucho troubadour whose improvised sung debates, called payadas de contrapunto, were central to River Plate folk culture from the 18th century onward. The tradition gained its defining literary monument in José Hernández's Martín Fierro (1872), whose protagonist's voice was modeled directly on payador performance style. The series itself was struck to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Casa de Moneda's return to state ownership after its brief privatization under Menem.