25 Gulden Recepis

De Javasche Bank, established in 1828 under Dutch colonial authority in Batavia, issued its early Gulden notes during a period when the colony's monetary supply was chronically disorganized — Spanish dollars, Dutch rijksdaalders, and VOC-era copper all circulated alongside paper. The "Recepis" designation is significant: these were essentially receipts for deposited coin rather than conventional banknotes, a distinction that mattered legally and practically in the Dutch East Indies at mid-century.

Surviving examples from this 1846 series are genuinely rare. The humid equatorial climate of Java was brutal on paper currency, and the bank periodically recalled and destroyed worn stock.