Catalog
6 Livres Tournois
| Issuer | Trésoriers Généraux des Colonies |
|---|---|
| Year | 1768 |
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| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | P#A1 |
| Obverse description | Plain typeset note within a simple double-rule border, with the heading 'Isles de France & de Bourbon' in italic script above the letterpress text body. The text authorizes payment of six livres tournois to the bearer by bill of exchange at six months' sight on the colonial treasurers, per the edict of July 1768. Two manuscript signatures appear at lower left and lower right, with handwritten serial number at upper left. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | 50c |
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| Comments |
The Trésoriers Généraux des Colonies issued notes specifically to circulate in France's overseas colonial territories, not in metropolitan France — a structural distinction that mattered enormously for redemption. The 1768 series predates the Revolutionary assignat collapse by two decades, but colonial paper had already earned deep mistrust among merchants who had watched earlier colonial card money schemes in New France implode unpaid in the 1760 liquidation.
Hand-laid paper at this date means no watermark standardization; forgery was a persistent administrative complaint across all colonial note issues of this period. Surviving examples are rare enough that condition quibbling is largely academic.