5 Pesos

The Provincia de Catamarca note is a provincial quasi-currency issued under Argentina's convertibility regime, when several cash-strapped provinces began printing their own instruments to meet payroll and local obligations that the federal government couldn't — or wouldn't — cover. These are not emergency notes in the traditional sense; they circulated alongside the peso as de facto legal tender within provincial borders, accepted by local merchants out of practical necessity rather than legal obligation.

Ciccone Calcografica, the Buenos Aires security printer behind much of Argentina's provincial paper from this period, produced the series. The firm later became notorious for its entanglement in a major counterfeiting and corruption scandal that broke in 2011.