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4 Pesos Tesoro Nacional
| Issuer | Tesoro Nacional, Paraguay |
|---|---|
| Year | 1862 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 4 Pesos |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central oval medallion bearing the Coat of Arms of Paraguay, flanked to the right by a vignette of an ox and plow. The issuer title runs vertically along the left margin, rotated 90 degrees. A manuscript signature of Carlos A. López appears at the centre right, with denomination numerals and ornamental guilloche scrollwork framing the note on all sides. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | La ley perseguirá álos falsificadores y sus cómplices 4 PESOS. 4 PESOS. El Tesoro Nacional pagará al portador la cantidad de CUATRO PESOS valor recibido. (Translation: The law will prosecute counterfeiters and their accomplices 4 Pesos. 4 Pesos. The National Treasury will pay to the bearer the amount of Four Pesos received value.) |
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| Comments |
Paraguay's Tesoro Nacional issues of the early 1860s were produced almost entirely without outside technical assistance — an unusual circumstance for Latin American paper money of the period, when most regional governments were contracting engravers in London, Paris, or New York. This note was printed domestically in Asunción, under the isolationist regime of Carlos Antonio López, whose signature it bears. López had spent decades carefully sealing Paraguay from foreign commercial entanglement, making state-produced currency a point of political principle as much as practical necessity.
The series was short-lived. López died in September 1862, and the transition to his son Francisco Solano López set the country on a course toward the catastrophic War of the Triple Alliance, which began in 1864 and ultimately destroyed much of Paraguay's population and its pre-war paper currency infrastructure entirely.