20 Pesos

The Banco y Casa de Moneda de Buenos Ayres occupied a peculiar institutional position — simultaneously a bank of issue and a mint, a combination that reflected the province of Buenos Aires's insistence on managing its own monetary affairs independently of the Argentine Confederation throughout the 1850s and into the 1860s. By 1864, that political standoff had formally ended with Buenos Aires's incorporation into the unified republic, yet the provincial bank continued issuing notes under its old name for several more years before eventual absorption.

PS#444 is among the scarcer denominations from this transitional period. Provincial paper from Buenos Aires in the 1860s suffered heavy attrition — much of it was redeemed and pulped during the monetary consolidations of the 1880s under the Roca administration.