10 Gulden

De Curacaosche Bank was established in 1828, making it one of the oldest issuing institutions in the Caribbean. This series was printed by Enschedé in Haarlem during a decade when Curaçao's economy was being reshaped by the Shell refinery at Willemstad, which had begun processing Venezuelan crude in 1918 and rapidly became the dominant economic force on the island — dwarfing the older trade and financial structures the bank had been built to serve.

Enschedé's intaglio work on Netherlands Antilles issues from this period is generally of high quality, though the relatively small surviving population of P#16 suggests limited original print runs or heavy attrition in tropical circulation conditions.