Comment by juancn
4 hours ago
This has been done many times in many places.
Argentina did it last in 2001 or so (several parallel currencies were issued by different provinces: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuasimonedas -Spanish only-).
When the central government fails, in many cases local governments attempt anything to keep functioning.
It does work, but the cleanup is messy.
They work quite well for a short time, perhaps a few years. Jujuy (north west) and other provinces started with the bonds a few years earlier. The first 1 or 2 year the exchange rate was "1 bono (bond) = 1 peso", and everyone accepted them at face value.
Then you couldn't buy fuel or meat with bonds, only with real pesos. And if you have to send money to a family member (like a son/daughter studding in other province) you have to exchange them with a cut.
During the final year, the shops accepted them with a 30% cut, so it was like "1 bono = 0.70 pesos", and still were not able to use them to buy fuel, meat and other things.
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I think the last bond was the Patacón https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patac%C3%B3n_(bond) by the province of Buenos Aires, that is big enough and it was too close to the general collapse that it never lost the 1 to 1 parity with pesos.