Collection Of Coins From Curacao And The Netherlands Antilles

Hi hfjacinto, I have not yet been to the ABC islands. I would be interested in visiting Curacao for its history.

Very informative! Thank you for posting.

Trouble was that if the government could do cut coins into 4 and countermark them, so could others.

When I worked at the British Museum, I saw several such coins that seemed to have markedly different countermarks, possibly fake countermarks.

Also, one of the "genuine" countermarks was struck on a segment of a fake piece of 8.

Some of these countermarked coins are markedly less than quarters.

Thank you for sharing.

Even though the production of private Stuiver tokens from Jesurun & Co., Jacob Jeosuah Naar, and Leyba & Co. alleviated the shortage of small coinage somewhat on the island of Curacao, a large amount of silver one-tenth and quarters guldens were struck as well by the central government in The Netherlands in 1900-1901.
In order to prevent these coins from vanishing from circulation due to the trade deficit the island was running at the time, the two coins were designated as legal tender in Curacao only. To emphasize this, the text "Kolonie Curacao" (colony of Curacao) was written across the top half of each coin. I have the 1/4 Gulden in my collection.

With the minting of the tenth- and quarter guldens coins, a new era with respect to coin production for the Dutch colony of Curacao also commenced. Where it that during the preceding centuries, coins were struck both locally and elsewhere, a new bill signed by the Dutch Queen dated May 28, 1901, stipulated that ALL coinage of the Kingdom, including its colonies, shall be fabricated at The Royal Mint in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done as only 13 years later, Word War I started, which made importing silver into country almost impossible, even though The Netherlands was neutral during the conflict. The issue of the "perpetual trade deficit" of Curacao was finally rectified when during the 1930's a refinery was built to process the crude oil imported from Venezuela, and its products sold to the Central American countries and the USA.
With the start of World War II, things changed again. The island was occupied by British and American troops, with the refinery one of the main sources of fuel for the Allied operations. However, with the 1901 law still in effect, having sufficient circulating coinage became a problem as the Dutch were in no position to send copper and silver coins to Curacao.
As a result, the governor of Curacao contacted the Dutch Embassy in Washington, DC, in order to obtain coins for circulation from elsewhere. With help from the embassy, the governor was able to secure a decent supply of coins from the US Mint in Philadelphia where an order was placed for 500,000 silver quarters dated 1941; 500,000 silver quarters dated 1943; 300,000 silver dimes dated 1941; 500,000 silver dimes dated 1943, 2,000,000 nickel brass stuivers dated 1943; and 500,000 bronze cents dated 1942.
A year or two later, another large order for several hundred thousand of coins of different denominations was placed with the Denver Mint.





Of course, it was all fine and dandy that the governor went out of his way to organize a functioning island economy, but the fact remained that the law of 1901 still was on the books and what the governor did was "technically" unlawful.
To circumvent this, earlier in 1940, May 10 to be exact (5 days after the Dutch capitulation), the governor had simply declared that "The Netherlands" be a "foreign power" and therefore, Curacao had nothing to do with them, at least in financial terms. This of course led to consternation at the Dutch government in exile in London who furiously annulled the decree several months later. Being in a pickle, the governor and the Estates of Curacao decided therefore to just go all in and write the Queen directly by telegram, outlining their request. After some wrangling, the Dutch government in exile was basically check-mated at that point and the Queen signed a new degree late 1942 allowing for Curacao to go ahead with their purchase from the Americans.

Lovely coins! And an interesting account of how the small island ingeniously gets around the obstacles that arise in the wake of major world events.