10 Gourdes

The Banque Nationale d'Haïti was founded in 1880 under a concession granted to a French banking syndicate — the bank was effectively a Parisian institution operating on Haitian soil, which is why Imp. G. Richard et Cie handled production rather than any local press. Haiti had no domestic printing capacity capable of producing secure currency at this period.

The 1880s were a decade of chronic fiscal instability for the republic, with successive governments drawing heavily on the bank's note-issuing privileges to cover budget shortfalls. Notes from this series consequently circulated hard, and survivors in presentable condition are genuinely uncommon. The P#74A designation covers the full decade, suggesting either continuous reissue from the same plates or insufficient date documentation to differentiate printings.