20 Joes = 440 Guilders

The "Joe" — from the Portuguese Johannes, the gold coin widely traded in the Atlantic world — was used here as an accounting unit of value rather than anything physically minted by the colony. Twenty Joes rendered as 440 Guilders reflects the dual-currency arithmetic that colonial Dutch Guiana ran on well into the nineteenth century, long after the Dutch West India Company had ceased to function and the British had taken formal possession of the territory.

By 1830 the Court of Policy was administering Demerara and Essequibo under British rule but still issuing notes denominated in the old Dutch colonial reckoning. That institutional inertia is the real story here — this is paper money issued by a Dutch-origin governing body, in a British colony, denominated in a Portuguese coin equivalent. Pick 5 is not a common piece.