Provincia de Tucumán
The Province of Tucumán, acting through its Executive Branch, issued Bonos de Cancelación de Deudas (BOCADE) as provincial debt-cancellation instruments under Law No. 5728 and subsequent amendments. The notes were denominated first in australes and later in pesos and belong to Tucumán’s provincial fiscal and payment history, not to the national banknote issues of the Banco Central de la República Argentina.
Quick Facts
Institutional Identity
Provincia de Tucumán is the correct issuing authority for the provincial Bonos de Cancelación de Deudas (BOCADE). The legal text reproduced on the notes states that Law No. 5728, as amended, authorized the provincial Executive Branch to issue the bonds for payment of debts of the provincial state and allowed them to be provided for the same purpose to decentralized agencies, autonomous entities and state-owned enterprises.
The same legal conditions define how the instruments operated. The General Treasury of the Province and other authorized public entities could deliver the bonds to creditors who accepted them, while the provincial central administration and related public bodies were required to accept them in full or partial settlement of monetary claims at nominal value. This makes the BOCADE a provincial debt and payment instrument rather than a banknote issued by Argentina’s national central bank.
Banco de la Provincia de Tucumán must not be treated as the issuer. Article 4 of the text printed on the 1-austral notes assigned the bank a redemption role: the bonds were exchangeable there for legal-tender currency at 100% of nominal value under procedures determined by the Executive Branch. The issuing authorization, however, belonged to the provincial government.
Historical Evolution
Numista catalogues Tucumán local banknotes in the austral era from the mid-1980s. The catalogue includes 10- and 50-centavo issues dated to 1985–1986, followed by 1-, 5-, 10-, 50-, 100-, 500- and higher-austral denominations. The 1-austral P-S2711 family is dated 1987–1988 and explicitly cites Law No. 5728, amended by Law No. 5866.
On P-S2711, the printed legal text authorized an amended amount of 20 million australes and specified that the bonds were bearer instruments. It also set 30 November 1991 as the expiry date, provided for their use in settling provincial obligations and required redemption into legal tender at nominal value through Banco de la Provincia de Tucumán. Individual printings were further identified by decree references, creating catalogue-level varieties within the same Pick type.
The provincial bond system continued into the peso era. Numista records Tucumán peso-denominated local and emergency debt-cancellation issues during the 1990s and early 2000s. The closing institutional milestone came in 2003. By Provincial Decree No. 865/3 (ME), Tucumán adhered to the Programa de Unificación Monetaria and entrusted the National State with the redemption of BOCADE issued under Law No. 5728 and its amendments. National Decree No. 1249/2003 accepted that mandate and set a maximum redemption amount of 169 million pesos, with qualifying provincial titles to be replaced by national legal-tender currency.
Design Philosophy
The BOCADE design is inseparable from its legal function. The P-S2711 obverse identifies PROVINCIA DE TUCUMAN and BONOS DE CANCELACION DE DEUDAS, gives the series and Law No. 5728, states bearer status and the expiry date, and carries the official titles MINISTRO DE ECONOMIA and GOBERNADOR. The provincial coat of arms is placed centrally, with serial numbers at the right.
The reverse is unusually documentary: much of the available space reproduces five operative articles governing authorization, issue formalities, delivery and acceptance, redemption and use as security. Behind this legal text appears the Casa del Obispo Colombres, associated with Tucumán’s sugar-industry museum, together with a floral motif. The note was printed by Casa de Moneda in Argentina.
For P-S2711, small textual and decree differences are essential design evidence. PMG’s World Paper Money Price Guide separates S2711a from S2711b by the presence of JARDIN DE LA REPÚBLICA at bottom centre on the face. Numista further records multiple 1987–1988 printings distinguished by the decree line on the reverse and by whether that phrase is present, so apparently similar notes should not be identified from denomination and colour alone.
For collectors
For collectors, the primary attribution rule is institutional: these are Provincia de Tucumán issues. They should not be reassigned to the Banco Central de la República Argentina merely because they use the austral or peso unit, and Banco de la Provincia de Tucumán should not be listed as issuer simply because it handled redemption.
Within the 1-austral P-S2711 family, the most useful identifiers are the Pick suffix, the presence or absence of JARDIN DE LA REPÚBLICA, the decree reference at the bottom of the reverse, series designation, serial-number details and the 30 November 1991 expiry clause. Numista records four Colantonio varieties across 1987 and 1988, while PMG distinguishes the principal S2711a and S2711b types.
The wider Tucumán field should also be separated by currency era. Austral-denominated BOCADE and later peso-denominated provincial issues belong to the same provincial issuing tradition but not to the same monetary period. Recording the currency unit, law and amendment references, decree, expiry date and exact catalogue variety preserves the legal and historical distinctions that make these provincial notes meaningful.
