50 Centimos Overprint on P#166

Paraguay's wartime economy forced a series of provisional overprint issues in the early 1940s, this being one of the more pragmatic solutions to a shortage of small-denomination notes in circulation. Rather than commission an entirely new printing, the Banco de la República had existing 1 Peso stock from the ABNC overprinted to create a lower face value — a cost-saving measure that also bought time before a fuller currency revision could be organized.

The ABNC plates used for the underlying P#166 base note dated from an earlier contract, meaning the overprinted issue combined two distinct production moments in a single piece of paper.