500 Pesos

Giesecke & Devrient's Leipzig facility produced this note during a period when Uruguay, like much of Latin America, was navigating the financial shock of the Great Depression. The 500 Pesos was a high-denomination instrument — not a note that passed through many hands in daily commerce — which partly explains why surviving examples tend to show light wear rather than the heavy soiling typical of lower denominations from the same series.

Pick 26 belongs to a transitional issue for the Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay, sitting between earlier notes that relied heavily on European plate designs and the more nationally assertive issues that followed later in the decade. G&D's Leipzig connection was severed for Uruguayan contracts once political pressures of the mid-1930s made German sourcing diplomatically awkward.