Catalog
25 Gulden Willem Mess
| Issuer | De Nederlandsche Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1931-1941 |
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| Reference(s) | P#50 |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | DE NEDERLANDSCHE BANK BETAALT AAN TOONDER VIJF EN TWINTIG GULDEN 25 JOH. ENSCHEDÉ EN ZONEN IMP. LION CACHET FEQ. (Translation: Bank of Netherlands Pay to the Bearer Twenty Five Gulden 25 Joh. Enschedé and Sons Imp. Lion Cachet Feq.) |
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| Reverse lettering | 25 - DNB AMSTERDAM 18 JUNI 1931 WETBOEK VAN STRAFRECHT ART. 208. Hij die muntspeciën of munt- of bankbiljetten namaakt of vervalst, met het oogmerk om die muntspeciën of munt- of bankbiljetten als echt en onvervalst uit te geven of te doen uitgeven, wordt gestraft met gevangenisstraf van ten hoogste NEGEN JAREN. AQ (Translation: 25 - DNB Amsterdam, June 18, 1931. Criminal Code Art. 208. He who counterfeits or falsifies coins or coin- or banknotes for the purpose of issuing or having those coins or coin- or banknotes issued as genuine and unadulterated is punishable by imprisonment of up to Nine Years.) |
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| Comments |
The Willem Mess series — named after the bank's president at the time of design approval — spans a decade of issue that ended abruptly with the German occupation of May 1940, after which surviving stocks were frozen and later largely destroyed. Enschedé's Haarlem workshop had printed Dutch banknotes continuously since the nineteenth century, and this note falls squarely within their interwar output: technically conservative, deliberately difficult to counterfeit by the standards of the period.
Lion Cachet was a Dutch applied artist with a pronounced Indo-European aesthetic, unusual for central bank commissions. His involvement here was part of a broader DNB initiative in the 1920s to commission serious artists rather than career engravers.