Argentina Australes 8 pcs Set +Bonus 1 5 10 50 100 500 1000 XF-UNC

Seven denominations of Argentina's doomed Austral currency — plus a rare provincial bonus — in a single set. This is the complete circulating series of the Argentine Austral (1985–1991), the currency born of crisis and consumed by hyperinflation, assembled in XF to UNC condition. The eighth note — the Tucumán Province 1 Austral emergency bond — is a collector's prize in its own right: a quasi-currency issued by a province that literally ran out of money.

What's in the Set

• 1 Austral — P-323; portrait of Bernardino Rivadavia, Argentina's first president
• 5 Australes — P-324; portrait of José de San Martín, liberator of Argentina, Chile, and Peru
• 10 Australes — P-325; portrait of Manuel Belgrano, general and creator of the Argentine flag
• 50 Australes — P-326; portrait of Justo José de Urquiza, president who unified Argentina under its constitution
• 100 Australes — P-327; portrait of Domingo F. Sarmiento, the schoolmaster president and father of public education
• 500 Australes — P-328; portrait of Nicolás Avellaneda, Argentina's youngest-ever president
• 1000 Australes — P-329; portrait of Julio A. Roca
• BONUS — Tucumán Province 1 Austral — P-S2711; Tucumán Province emergency Bono de Cancelación de Deudas (Debt Cancellation Bond), 1988 — issued when the province could not pay its employees and creditors in federal currency

Condition

• Grade: XF to UNC — notes are crisp and presentable; exact grade varies by denomination and variety received
• Composition: Paper, 155 × 65 mm each (standard notes)
• Demonetized: 30 November 1992 — all standard Austral notes; the Tucumán bond was a short-lived local instrument

A Currency That Lasted Seven Years

The Plan Austral launched on 15 June 1985 under President Raúl Alfonsín as a shock therapy program to arrest inflation running at 688% annually. The Austral replaced the Peso Argentino at 1:1,000. It worked — briefly. By 1989, inflation had returned above 3,000%. By 1990 it briefly touched 20,000% annualized. The Austral was replaced by the Peso Convertible in 1992 at 10,000 Australes to 1 Peso. The entire denomination range in this set — from 1 to 1,000 — was rendered worthless within the decade.

1 Austral — Bernardino Rivadavia: The President Who Never Finished His Term

Bernardino Rivadavia (1780–1845) holds the distinction of being Argentina's first constitutional president — and one of its shortest-serving. Elected in 1826, he resigned just a year later as the country fractured over the question of centralism versus federalism. A Buenos Aires liberal who had studied in Europe and admired the Enlightenment, Rivadavia founded the University of Buenos Aires in 1821, established the country's first public library, and attempted to modernize Argentina's land tenure system. He was too far ahead of his time for a country still fighting over its own identity. His face on the 1 Austral — the smallest denomination, the first issued — is fitting: a founding figure on a founding note.

5 Australes — José de San Martín: The Liberator Who Walked Away

José de San Martín (1778–1850) is the closest thing the Southern Cone has to George Washington — and then some. Born in Yapeyú, in what is now Argentina's Corrientes province, he spent his early career fighting for Spain before returning to South America to liberate it. His crossing of the Andes in 1817 — leading an army of 5,000 men over some of the world's highest passes in winter — remains one of the most audacious military operations in history. He liberated Chile (1818) and Peru (1821), then voluntarily handed power to Simón Bolívar and retired to Europe, refusing to become a caudillo. He died in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in voluntary exile. Argentina's greatest hero chose to leave rather than rule.

10 Australes — Manuel Belgrano: The General Who Designed the Flag

Manuel Belgrano (1770–1820) was a lawyer, economist, and general who became one of the most versatile figures of Argentine independence. He created the Argentine flag in 1812 — the sky-blue and white that still flies today — reportedly inspired by the colors of the Virgin Mary. As a military commander he was often outgunned and outmaneuvered, but his moral authority was unquestioned. He donated his entire military salary to found schools in Tucumán and Jujuy. He died in 1820, the same year Argentina descended into civil war, reportedly saying: “I hope these disorders will end and that the country will be organized.” It took another four decades.

50 Australes — Justo José de Urquiza: The Man Who Ended Rosas

Justo José de Urquiza (1801–1870) was the caudillo of Entre Ríos province who did what no one else could: he defeated the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas at the Battle of Caseros in 1852, ending two decades of authoritarian rule. As president (1854–1860), he presided over the drafting of Argentina's 1853 Constitution — still the basis of Argentine law today — and worked to unify the fractious provinces into a functioning federal republic. He was assassinated in 1870 by a rival caudillo's men. His legacy is the constitutional framework that, however imperfectly, Argentina has returned to again and again.

100 Australes — Domingo F. Sarmiento: The Schoolmaster President

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811–1888) was a self-educated man from San Juan who became a journalist, diplomat, and Argentina's seventh president (1868–1874). His landmark work Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism (1845) remains a foundational text of Latin American literature — a searing diagnosis of the caudillo culture he believed was holding Argentina back. As president, he founded hundreds of schools and libraries, imported teachers from the United States, and laid the groundwork for Argentina's once-enviable literacy rate. His face on the 100 Australes is no accident: education was supposed to be the antidote to the chaos this very note represents.

500 Australes — Nicolás Avellaneda: The Boy President

Nicolás Avellaneda (1837–1885) was born in Tucumán — the same province whose emergency bond appears as the bonus in this set — and rose to the presidency at just 37, making him the youngest president in Argentine history. A lawyer, journalist, and passionate advocate for public education, he oversaw the federalization of Buenos Aires as the national capital in 1880, a defining and contentious moment in Argentina's consolidation as a modern state. He died at 48, still young, still consequential. The irony of Avellaneda — a Tucumán native — appearing on the 500 Australes while Tucumán's own emergency bond sits beside it in this set is not lost on collectors.

1000 Australes — Julio A. Roca: The General Who Conquered Patagonia

Julio Argentino Roca (1843–1914) is Argentina's most controversial founding figure. As general, he led the Conquest of the Desert (1878–1879) — a military campaign that exterminated or displaced the indigenous peoples of Patagonia and opened millions of hectares to European settlement and cattle ranching. As president (twice: 1880–1886 and 1898–1904), he oversaw Argentina's Belle Époque boom, when the country briefly became one of the wealthiest in the world. His face on the highest denomination of the Austral series is a study in Argentine contradictions: the man who built the country's prosperity on dispossession, honored on a note that itself became worthless.

BONUS: Tucumán Province 1 Austral — When the Province Ran Out of Money

The P-S2711 Tucumán Province Bono de Cancelación de Deudas is not a federal banknote — it is a provincial emergency instrument, issued in 1988 when Tucumán could no longer pay its employees, suppliers, and creditors in official currency. These bonds circulated locally as a substitute for australes, accepted by shops and businesses out of sheer necessity. The phenomenon was not unique to Tucumán — Salta, Córdoba, La Rioja, and other provinces issued similar instruments — but it was a harbinger of the far larger provincial quasi-currency crisis of 2001–2002, when patacones and lecops briefly became Argentina's de facto parallel currencies. This small bond is the missing piece that makes the Austral story complete: not just a federal currency in collapse, but a country fragmenting all the way down to the provincial level.

Own all eight notes and hold the complete story of Argentina's most dramatic monetary experiment — from the hopeful 1 Austral of 1985 to the desperate provincial bond of 1988 to the 1,000 Austral note that couldn't keep pace with prices. A set that tells the whole arc, in your hands.