Collection PL

Uruguay’s paper money mirrors its passage from a provincial economy to a modern republic confident in global finance. The earliest notes of the 1860s, engraved in London by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co., introduced the British idiom of guilloché precision and allegorical restraint. By the 1890s, production shifted to the American Bank Note Company in New York, whose craftsmanship redefined the visual identity of the Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay. The photographic and presentation proofs preserved from this period reveal how trans-Atlantic engraving shaped national credibility.

The 1896 ABNC series—from the 1 Peso to the monumental 100 Pesos—established Uruguay’s modern numismatic language: Artigas portrayed as civic virtue, Montevideo’s harbor as prosperity, and classical symmetry as stability. Transitional proofs around 1900–1915 show refinement toward monumental clarity, while a Bradbury Wilkinson die proof of Artigas from circa 1920 preserves the British influence that lingered in official iconography.

The 1935 – 1939 Departamento de Emisión series completed the transformation. Large-format photographic proofs of denominations up to 1 000 Pesos document Uruguay’s entry into the Art Deco era—balanced geometry, allegories of labor and liberty, and the precision of intaglio modernism. Viewed together, these archival proofs trace half a century of design evolution, where foreign engraving houses translated a small republic’s faith in progress into a lasting visual currency.

This section is built around production-stage material—photographic proofs, presentation pairs, and specimens—rather than issued notes alone. The grouping reflects a deliberate focus on how designs evolved through approval and printing stages, based on surviving archival examples. The collection continues to expand, with additional material not yet publicly listed.