The austral was the currency of Argentina between 15 June 1985, and 31 December 1991. It was divided into 100 centavos. The symbol was an uppercase A with an extra horizontal line, (₳). This symbol appeared on all coins issued in this currency (including centavos), to distinguish them from earlier currencies.
The symbol for the austral is encoded in Unicode (as of 4.1), as U+20B3 ₳ AUSTRAL SIGN.
History
Finance Minister Juan Vital Sourrouille devised the Austral plan. The austral replaced the peso argentino at a rate of ₳1 = $a1,000, making the austral worth US$1.25, or 80 centavos de austral per U.S. dollar.
In 1992, the austral was itself replaced by the convertible peso at a rate of $1 = ₳10,000.
Coins
In 1985, coins were introduced for 1⁄2, 1, 5, 10 and 50 centavos. The 1⁄2¢ was only issued in 1985, whilst production of the 1¢ ceased in 1987, 5¢ ceased in 1988, and that of the other centavo coins ended in 1989. In 1989, ₳1, ₳5 and ₳10 coins were issued, followed in 1990 and 1991 by ₳100, ₳500 and ₳1,000 denominations.
Banknotes
In 1985, provisional issues were made consisting of $a1000, $a5000 and $a10,000 notes overstamped with the values ₳1, ₳5 and ₳10.
Between 1985 and 1991, the following notes were issued by the Banco Central:
All banknotes except the provisional types show on the back an image of Liberty with a torch and shield. The provisional banknotes were produced from modified peso ley plates. On the obverses, the word PESOS were erased, whilst the reverse designs substituted the picture with the denomination written in words without spaces in several rows. The denomination was shown on both faces in the form ₳10 MIL (₳10,000), ₳50 MIL (₳50,000) and ₳500 MIL (₳500,000).