½ Real Plata Boliviana

The Banco Argentino operated out of Córdoba during the brief window of provincial free banking in Argentina before federal banking legislation effectively ended such arrangements. The denomination — half a Real Plata Boliviana — reflects the monetary confusion of the interior provinces in the early 1870s, where Bolivian silver coinage still circulated widely and local banks denominated small notes accordingly rather than using the peso fuertes framework preferred in Buenos Aires.

The trailing underscore in the date indicates the year was left partially blank at printing, to be completed on issue — common practice, but it means dating individual examples requires reading the manuscript completion rather than the typeset field.