50 Centavos

San Juan province issued its own fractional currency in 1909 to address a persistent shortage of small-denomination national coinage that afflicted interior Argentine provinces well into the early twentieth century. The national government had repeatedly failed to supply adequate coin to the provinces, forcing several to print their own emergency fractions — a practice technically tolerated rather than formally sanctioned by Buenos Aires.

The printer, the Compañía Sud-Americana de Billetes de Banco, was the dominant local security printer of the period, handling note production for several provincial authorities as well as private banks across the region. Pick PS2174 is among the scarcer of San Juan's provincial emissions from this series.