Playing Card Money in Suriname

Even quite simple economies need money. A mere subsistence economy might function without one but before any kind of market economy develops, a medium of exchange is a necessity. If typical forms of money, like banknotes or coins, don’t exist, either in law or in practice, then an alternative is likely to develop on its own. In Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America, playing cards were employed as a substitute for precious metal coins which were unavailable.

Setting

Captured from the English in 1667, Suriname became a Dutch colony, continuing as such through the 18th century and beyond. It was governed by the directors of the Sociëteit van Suriname, a company formed in 1683. From a collection of trading posts purchasing gold and commodities like woods and dyes from indigenous people in exchange for European wares, Suriname developed a slave-dependent plantation economy exporting sugar and coffee. The colony was also dependent on the Netherlands for money and credit. While the Netherlands may have possessed a solid financial system, the most well-developed in Europe at the time, Suriname struggled with the basics, namely the availability of any kind of money at all.

Money Shortages

Suriname was a small economy where most laborers were slaves working without pay. Yet, the colony still lacked a stock of ordinary Dutch coins sufficient for its needs. Spanish coins from neighboring regions circulated in Suriname. English coins may have too after the colonists were permitted to trade with English merchants in a bid by the Dutch to improve the profitability of the colony and the quality of life for settlers. European colonists were keen to buy the rare goods from home that came on these ships but they needed a means of payment.

Colonial economies often struggled with shortages of coins in part because of the need to pay for imports of so many articles that could only be sourced from abroad. Planters also needed to repay loans from abroad. This all meant that the currency that did enter the colonies left almost immediately and little of it circulated amongst the colonists.

Of course, the colonies did export goods too but, in mercantilist Europe, government policy typically encouraged the metropole to run consistent trade surpluses against the colonies. So, Suriname struggled as coins were exported to the Netherlands in trade. This could perhaps be tolerated in a sustenance economy but, in part because of frequent wars, money was in high demand. Wars also made it more difficult to keep money in the colonies. In 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession, French naval forces pillaged the coast of Suriname taking, among other things, whatever money was available.

Alternatives

Substitutes for coined money were turned to. Sugar was used as money, being recognized as legal tender in 1669 at a fixed value of two stuivers, or one-tenth of a Dutch guilder, per pound. Neighboring colonial economies, that of Portuguese Brazil and English Barbados, also saw sugar used as money. After the conferring of legal tender status on sugar, copper tokens were minted to close more of the shortfall in the money supply. These simple coins, all featuring a parrot perched on a branch, were issued in denominations of one, two, and four pounds of sugar. The number of leaves on the branch distinguished the denomination of the coin.

Copper coins in Suriname, c. 1679 (source: De Nederlandsche Bank)

The shortage of money in colonial economies generally was not a short-lived problem and this is just as true in Suriname. There, shortages of money returned in the late-18th century. New coins for the colony were minted in the Netherlands but it’s unclear whether they ever circulated. If they did, they very quickly returned home in payment of trade deficits. The shortages continued when the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars cut off Suriname from the Netherlands. The colony was even occupied by Britain from 1799 to 1816 as Holland remained occupied by France. There were no more shipments of coins and paper banknotes from Europe.

Card Money

Though sugar was used as money, there was another item turned to as an alternative to metal coins. Most notably from the mid-18th century to the 1820s, playing cards were repurposed as money. Conveniently made of thick paper, playing cards were already available in Suriname; card games, just like dice and billiards, were common pastimes among settlers in the colony. Suriname was not the first place where playing cards were used as such; facing its own scarcity of coins, French Quebec had already employed cards as money starting from 1685.

Of course, one downside is that such a form of money had no intrinsic value. However, in a colonial economy, with all its resulting monetary handicaps, this might not have been a downside at all. Arguably, this could very well have been the most appealing aspect of playing card given the context. Since they were worthless abroad, there was no incentive to export the playing card money in the way that metal coins typically left the colony, preventing a steady supply of coined money from being maintained in Suriname prior to their introduction.

Playing card money c. 1807 (source: De Nederlandsche Bank)

The idea was soon implemented at large scale. Emissions of the playing card money included some issuances in the tens-of-thousands at a time. Yet, the playing cards were initially backed by bill of exchanges promising paying in ordinary money in the Netherlands. A holder could redeem their playing card money for the bill of exchange and, if they sent it to Holland, could obtain metal coins. As perhaps another link to metal coins, some playing card money was cut into round pieces, perhaps to resemble coins. However, many issuances maintained the rectangular form of a card.

The denominations reflected the rank of the card, allowing them to be used easily by the illiterate. At the time, this was an important consideration for any novel money that aimed to achieve a widespread circulation. The larger denomination cards were worth as much as 100 guilders. However, the legal tender value of the card money was set at just 2.5 guilders in coin to every 3.0 guilders in card money, establishing a 20% premium to the former over the latter.

Despite the effort to ease trade, the card money was irregular in size and shape. Some cards were cut into smaller pieces, either in half or quarters, with the size also denoting the denomination at times. Besides round and rectangular forms, even a hexagonal card money was issued. One commonality appears to be the simple security features which included an embossed stamp with an official seal depicting the coat of arms, a serial number, and a signature.

The stable value of the card money did not hold though. Higher government spending from waging wars against communities of escaped slaves living in the jungle and the desire to provide more credit to planters in the colony meant that more paper money was needed. Thus, the supply of money was once again scarcer than desired and, after 1761, card money usage accelerated as a result. It was estimated that between five and ten million guilders worth of them was issued, across dozens of issuances.

Their demise came in the subsequent century. An example of a late issuance, a series of twenty stuivers notes, of which an example is depicted above, were fashioned out of Jacks of Clubs and issued in 1813. These circulated until 1828. By this point, merchants had begun to issue their own unofficial card money. Theirs were not backed by bills of exchange. This was not much of a change though because, after 1761, the government in Suriname had been issuing their own card money not backed by bills drawn on Amsterdam. Counterfeiting of cards had also grown. As a result, the value of the playing card money fell and became more volatile; the 3-to-2.5 ratio to coined money failed to hold any longer.

Retirement

The British authorities governing Suriname during the war didn’t just maintain the circulation of the existing card money but issued more such money. When Dutch rule was reestablished, they looked for a replacement. After new notes were acquired by the government in 1826, card money was abolished. More paper money appeared in the form of banknotes issued by the Private West-Indies Bank starting from 1829. The existing circulating supply of playing card money was exchanged for new money and as such was withdrawn from circulation and destroyed. As a result, few examples exist to this day; a few that do are in the collections of the central banks of Suriname and the Netherlands.

Lesson

Government support is helpful to the adoption of a particular currency. Declaring something as legal tender, requiring that people accept it for at least some types of transactions, tends to encourage usage. Other aspects, including the form of the currency and convertibility, seem to matter less, at least in terms of adoption. Playing card money was rather improvised and after some initial experimentation was inconvertible. It did not last but as an improvisation, it seems to have sufficed.

More from the Tontine Coffee-House

Read about the use of playing cards, beads, and tobacco as money in colonial North America. Consider subscribing to this blog’s newsletter or checking out book recommendations, which include many of the sources often referenced in my posts.