Catalog
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| Issuer | Intendance Générale des Colonies |
|---|---|
| Year | 1780 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 100 Livres Tournois |
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| Obverse description | Typeset note printed in black on plain paper, enclosed within an ornamental scrollwork border. The legend BON pour CENT Livres Tournois, valeur reçue en Ordonnance is set in letterpress across the centre field, with the issuer's name ISLES de FRANCE & de BOURBON across the top. Multiple manuscript authorisation signatures and a handwritten serial number appear on the face, and a large cancellation cross is drawn in ink across the entire note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | ISLES de FRANCE & de BOURBON N° BON pour CENT Livres Tournois, valeur reçue en Ordonnance. Vu |
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| Comments |
The Intendance Générale des Colonies issued this note under the authority of the French crown to address chronic specie shortages in the Caribbean colonies — Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue all suffered from coins draining back to metropolitan France. Paper substitutes had been attempted since the card money experiments of the previous century, and this 1780 emission continued that uneasy tradition.
The livres tournois unit itself was already an anachronism by this date, abolished in metropolitan France by the Revolutionary reforms of 1795 — but colonial accounting clung to it well past its mainland death.