50 Centavos Fuertes

The Banco de San Juan was a provincial institution chartered in the Argentine province of San Juan, and by the mid-1870s it had established a branch in Tucumán — an arrangement that reflects the chaotic decentralization of Argentine banking before the 1890 Baring Crisis forced a national reckoning. Provincial banks of this period routinely issued their own notes, often with minimal metallic backing, and the system bred endemic inflation and regional currency fragmentation.

PS#1894 is a rare survivor from a short-lived branch operation. The Tucumán branch's independent emission authority was curtailed well before the national banking reforms of the following decade, which limits the volume of notes that ever entered circulation.