20 Pesos

The Casa de Moneda in Buenos Aires had been issuing paper currency since the 1820s, but by 1841 the institution was operating under the political grip of Juan Manuel de Rosas, whose government used the mint's note-issuing capacity heavily to finance both administration and military expenditure. Chronic over-issuance had already begun depreciating the peso paper against the peso fuerte — a process that would accelerate dramatically through the 1840s.

Locally printed rather than contracted abroad, this series shows it. The engraving and presswork lack the precision of contemporary British or French-produced South American issues, and the paper quality was inconsistent enough that forgery detection was a genuine institutional concern during the period.