Catalog
50 Centavos Fuertes
| Issuer | Banco Argentino, Concordia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1866 |
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| Reference(s) | P#S1466 |
| Obverse description | The obverse is dominated by a central oval vignette of a rooster standing in a landscape, rendered in fine intaglio engraving. The bank title BANCO ARGENTINO appears in bold letters across the upper portion, flanked by the numeral 50 in each corner. Handwritten and printed text panels on either side record the promise-to-pay obligation in Spanish, with the date 1° Mayo de 1866 printed to the lower right; a red diagonal NULA overprint is present across the centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANCO ARGENTINO 50 CENTAVOS Promise este billete CINCUENTA de pesos fuertes y pagará al portador SERIE A 1° Mayo de 1866 1352 EL GERENTE La Compañia Americana de Billetes de Banco Nueva York |
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| Comments |
The Banco Argentino of Concordia was one of several provincial Argentine banks that turned to the American Bank Note Company in New York during the 1860s, a common arrangement given the near-total absence of quality intaglio printing capacity in Argentina at the time. Concordia sits in Entre Ríos province, on the Uruguayan border — a commercially active river port whose local bank required fractional notes to facilitate everyday trade that federal currency wasn't reliably supplying.
The "Fuertes" designation distinguished these notes from the depreciated paper pesos then circulating, pegging the denomination to the harder peso fuerte standard. Whether that peg held in practice was another matter entirely.