25 Gourdes

Haiti's Trésor Public issued this note just two decades after independence, at a moment when the republic was hemorrhaging silver to France under the terms of the 1825 indemnity — 150 million francs demanded by Charles X in exchange for diplomatic recognition. That arrangement gutted Haiti's metallic reserves and forced a reliance on paper instruments that the Haitian public, shaped by memories of worthless colonial assignats, received with deep skepticism.

Pick 37 is among the earliest surviving Haitian paper issues, and genuine examples are extremely rare. The Trésor Public lacked a formal printing relationship with a major European security printer at this stage — production was almost certainly domestic, which accounts for the relatively crude execution compared to contemporary Caribbean colonial issues.