10 Pesos

Catamarca's provincial quasi-currency emerged from the fiscal chaos of Argentina's Convertibility period, when many provinces — unable to run deficits under federal monetary rules — began issuing their own interest-bearing bonds that circulated as de facto banknotes. These instruments, generically called "cuasimonedas," were technically debt obligations of the provincial government rather than legal tender, a distinction that mattered enormously on paper and almost nowhere in daily commerce.

Ciccone Calcografica, Buenos Aires's principal security printer through this period, produced notes for several provinces simultaneously, which occasionally created superficial design similarities across different issuers. The Catamarca series ran through the late 1990s before the 2001–2002 crisis forced a national reckoning with all provincial quasi-currencies, most of which were eventually redeemed at negotiated rates against the restructured peso.