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20 Stuivers Dutch Guiana - Playing Card Money
| Issuer | Dutch Guiana Administration |
|---|---|
| Year | 1813 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The obverse utilises the upper portion of a standard playing card, retaining the original hand-coloured vignette of the Jack of Clubs in period costume — rendered in red, blue, and gold tones — with the black club pip visible in the upper right corner. The figure is shown from the waist up, turned slightly to the left, dressed in ornate courtly attire consistent with 18th-century French card design. The card stock is hand-cut, giving the note irregular edges characteristic of this emergency issue. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Signature(s) | J. Pringle |
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| Comments |
Dutch Guiana's playing card money of 1813 belongs to a well-documented tradition of emergency coinage substitutes in colonial outposts cut off from metropolitan supply lines — the Napoleonic Wars had effectively severed regular shipments of coin and printed currency from Europe. The administration resorted to the same improvised solution used generations earlier in French Canada: actual playing cards, cut or used whole, stamped with an official seal and signed to give them legal standing.
The embossed seal and manuscript signature of J. Pringle are the only things separating this from a discard from a card table. Pringle's precise role in the colonial administration has not been firmly established in published sources, which makes attribution of surviving examples dependent almost entirely on the signature itself.