Description and research notes
This 2 Reales Tesoro Nacional Treasury Note of 1856 is one of the foundational objects in the monetary history of Paraguay and is presented here as the unique known surviving example of this earliest national paper-money issue. Produced under the government of President Carlos Antonio Lopez, it predates the later and more familiar Paraguayan paper issues of the 1860s and belongs to the first attempt by the national Treasury to create a circulating paper instrument for domestic use.
The note was printed locally in Asuncion on thin handmade paper at a time when Paraguay still lacked the industrial printing infrastructure available to larger South American economies. Its design is direct, primitive, and historically powerful: the national seal with the lion and liberty cap occupies the central field, ornamental borders frame the obligation, and the denomination appears in large numerals at each side. The reverse is blank, consistent with the earliest local production method before more developed dual-side printing and imported paper became part of later Paraguayan note production.
The signatures of Matias Reina and Santiago Ozcariz place this note firmly within the earliest Treasury operation. Their handwritten authority, together with the individually entered serial details, gives the piece the character of a manually controlled government obligation rather than a standardized later issue. The compact setting of the phrase al portador, the open character of the lettering, the uneven impression, and the broad handwritten style separate this first-issue note from the later 1862 to 1865 wartime restrikes and re-lithographed types.
Historically, the 1856 Tesoro Nacional issue belongs to Paraguay's nation-building decade. The government of Carlos Antonio Lopez sought to modernize state administration, strengthen internal finance, and support commerce in an economy where metallic money remained limited. Small-denomination Treasury paper helped fill a practical monetary gap at the local level. Most early pieces were redeemed, worn out, or lost during the violent disruption of the War of the Triple Alliance, leaving the first Paraguayan paper-money issue almost absent from surviving material.
This example preserves the handmade and improvised nature of Paraguay's earliest fiscal printing. Its thin paper, uneven inking, blank reverse, manuscript signatures, and locally printed format are not merely production details; they are evidence of a young state creating sovereign money with the limited tools available in Asuncion. As a Pick Unlisted note attributed in specialized Latin American references as Miguel Pratt MC14, it stands outside the standard world-paper-money catalog sequence and represents a primary artifact of Paraguay's monetary origins.
Rarity: Pick Unlisted and attributed as Miguel Pratt MC14. This 1856 Reina-Ozcariz signed 2 Reales Tesoro Nacional Treasury Note is presented as the unique known surviving example of the earliest national paper money of Paraguay. Its importance rests on three connected points: it is the first national paper-money issue of Paraguay, it predates the later 1862 to 1865 restrike period, and it survives as a unique foundational document of South American fiscal and monetary history.