Description and research notes
Unissued 10 Centesimos note dated 1 July 1872 from P. Valdez & Co. of Tacuarembo (then San Fructuoso), printed by Lit. F. Bauer, Rincon 72, Montevideo. Pablo Valdez was a leading figure of 19th-century Tacuarembo: a stage-coach operator connecting San Fructuoso with Paso de los Toros, the town’s first agent of livestock brands and marks, and founder of the large soap works Jaboneria de Pablo Valdez near Arroyo Tranqueras. His firm issued these small bearer chits to replace missing fractional coinage during the post-conflict period following the Revolution of the Lances (1870-1872).
The green 10 Centesimos served as the lower denomination of a two-note series alongside a brown 20 Centesimos. Both were produced in bound counterfoil books, as shown by the wide left margin and binding perforations. Design: single-sided green lithograph with an agricultural harvest scene of field workers cutting and binding grain. The legend DIEZ CENTESIMOS sits in ornate rosettes marked 10, with the Bauer imprint at base. The N in the printed word Numero appears reversed, a minor plate flaw noted in contemporary descriptions. Some examples are known with an oval back stamp reading JABONERIA DE PABLO VALDEZ TACUAREMBO.
These merchant notes are among the earliest recorded private issues in Uruguay’s interior. They demonstrate how individual entrepreneurs like Valdez sustained local trade when official currency failed to reach the frontier economy.