Catalog
30 Sols
| Issuer | Governor of Louisiana |
|---|---|
| Year | 1733-1757 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Reference(s) | P#S104 |
| Obverse description | Plain handwritten note on aged paper, with a manuscript inscription reading the denomination "Trente Sols" (Thirty Sols) and the date 1752 written by hand, accompanied by a manuscript signature and an embossed or ink stamp seal in the upper right area. The note is entirely handwritten in the colonial administrative style typical of French Louisiana emergency currency, with no engraved vignette or printed design elements. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Trente Sols 1752 |
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| Comments |
Louisiana's colonial paper money occupies a peculiar corner of early American monetary history. The colony operated under chronic specie shortage throughout the French period, and notes like this 30 Sols issue were a direct administrative response — printed in France but circulated in a territory where public confidence in paper had already been badly damaged by the collapse of John Law's Mississippi scheme in 1720. That disaster was barely a decade old when this series began, which cannot have helped acceptance.
The embossed seal and manuscript signature were the primary anti-counterfeiting measures, as was standard for French colonial issues of the period. The long date range — 1733 to 1757 — spans the final decades of French Louisiana before the Seven Years' War effectively ended the colony's French administrative future.