World coins chat: Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles & Aruba

I believe demeykelly is from Aruba, so hopefully he has a lot to add to this topic.

The Netherlands Antilles consist of two groups of islands in the Caribbean:

- the ABC group: Aruba, Bonaire & Curaçao located near the northwestern coast of Venezuela (who claimed the islands a few times in history)
- the northeastern group: Saba, St Eustatius and half of St Martin (shared with the French)

Most of the monetary history is shared, so I grouped all of this together.

The Dutch settled these islands as trading posts for the West Indies Company in the early 1600's, modeled after the successful United East Indies Company (VOC in Dutch). In 1954 the Netherlands Antilles be came a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In 1986 the status of Aruba was upgraded to the same level. Very recently there was a new reform that put the smaller islands back under Dutch rule and gave Curaçao larger autonomy. A monetary reform was planned as well but I am not sure what the status is of that now. As fas as I know, the Netherlands Antilles Guilder is still used next to the Florin in Aruba.

Early 19th century there were some stiver coins of Curaçao, but the Dutch Guilder was mostly used. In 1900 & 1901, a 1/10 & 1/4 Guilder coins were introduced specifically for 'Kolonie Curaçao'. These are pretty rare, but I once snatched a VF 1/4 Guilder for less than 10 EUR.

It was not until World War 2 until new coins were introduced for the Netherlands Antilles. In 1944, the US mints produced 1, 2 1/2 and 5 cents as well as silver 1/10, 1/4, 1 and 2 1/2 Guilders with similar designs and specs as homeland currency. The currency rate was 1.79 NAF to 1 USD, a rate that still exists today. Homeland Dutch Guilders were devalued to 3.60 NLG to 1 USD following WW2, which brought the value of 1 NAF close to 2 NLG. In the decades that followed the Dutch Guilder followed a lot of Deutschmark revaluations until a Dutch Guilder even reached parity to NAF. With the recent devaluation of euro, that has been reversed a bit.

From 1954 coinage for the newly created Netherlands Antilles, with designs similar to pre-war Dutch coinage. After 1970 silver was abandoned and a new series introduced. With Beatrix crowned in 1980, initially only the portrait was updated but in 1989 a whole new series was introduced. In 2014 the portrait was updated for the new king Willem Alexander for the 1, 2 1/2 and 5 Guilder coins.

In 1986 Aruba introduced its own coinage at par with NAF. Especially the 5 Florin coins are hard to find in unc or it's just that I've only seen people asking 8 euros or more for it.

Coins of Curaçao:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/curacao-1.html

Netherlands Antilles:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/antilles_neerlandaises-1.html

Aruba:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/aruba-1.html

BES Islands:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/bes-islands-1.html

Netherlands Antilles guilder has been renamed as Curaçao and Sint-Maarten guilder, but its coinage remains bearing the Nederlandse Antillen mention even after Beatrix abdication, which should have allowed coinage modifications.

Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (known as BES islands or Caribbean Netherlands) switched to the US dollar but minted a special commemorative coin to celebrate the dollarization of the 3 Dutch municipalities.

Thanks for the info. Why they arranged it this way seems very unlogical to me. Especially St Maarten still with NAF, so far from Curaçao where the French half uses Euro and the surrounding islands the East Caribbean Dollar or US Dollar.

And the Bonaire they dollarised but that's located next to Curaçao. Pretty confusing.

Wow jokinen, it's very thorough (didn't leave much out for me) and I'm glad that you grouped us together.

One thing the Netherlands Antilles guilder hasn't been renamed to Curaçao and Sint-Maarten guilder, the Central Bank did (Centrale Bank van Curacao en Sint Maarten). Caribbean guilder is the proposed currency of the two islands since 2010, but 5 years later and still waiting.

And yes Dollar doesn't make much sense for the BES Islands, but in a referendum they had to choose from NAF/CMF, Euro or Dollar and from the people I know from Bonaire, the majority regrets choosing the Dollar.

This explains why the coinage remains as from NL Antilles... Their switch is getting slower as expected...

Quote: chomp-masterThis explains why the coinage remains as from NL Antilles... Their switch is getting slower as expected...

I know, right? We take our time in the Caribbean  

1636-1815 the islands under the Dutch West India Company (WIC)
During this time just like much of the sourounding colonies, we used the Spanish real, some VOC coinage also circulated and later the Curaçao reaal 1799-1828 was used, the Curaçao reaal was cut and stamped Spanish real locally called the yotin corta. In 1821 they minted a Curacao 1 reaal coin. The WIC minted some coins in 1794 1/4 gulden, 1 gulden and 3 gulden, but I'm not sure if it ever circulated the islands and are very rare. The oldest surviving document of the Dutch islands is a document were Pieter de Mey bought a plantation from widow Geertruijd Gipsen for the price of 250 pieces of eight. Imagine having 250 pieces of eight now  

1815-1954 the islands under Colony of Curaçao and Dependencies
Note: Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius was for a short period separated under Sint Eustatius and Dependencies. Sint Eustatius known as The Golden Rock, give the first salute to the american ship Andrew Doria, the first international acknowledgement of American independence. The British wasn't pleased they took the incident seriously and the fact that Sint Eustatius sold military supplies to the Thirteen Colonies. Few years later the island was invaded by the British.
Back to coins, in 1828 the Curaçao reaal was replaced by the Dutch gulden. Due to shortages of small demomination, the Curaçao 1 stuiver 1822 (silver and also minted 1840 & 1841 under year 1822) circulated along side of the Dutch Gulden. Then in 1874 due to some more shortage of coins they allowed the private companies Jesurun & Co, Leyba & Co, and Jacob Jeosuah Naar to issue a 1 stuiver coin (copper-nickel-zinc) but only had half the value of a stuiver and was widely accepted.
In 1900 they minted a ¼ gulden and in 1901 1/10 gulden both silver with Kolonie Curaçao on it. In 1941-1942 and 1943 we got again 10 cents and 25 cents coins especially for the islands since the Netherlands was occupied by Germany, they are exact same design as the Dutch coins but with P mint mark. From 1944-1954 Munt van Curaçao coins circulated.

1954-1986 under Netherlands Antilles
In 1952 they introduce the Netherlands Antilles gulden to the islands. From 1952-1970 we had bronze 1 cent and 2 1/2 cents - cupronickel square 5 cents - silver 1/10 cents, 1/4 cents, 1 gulden and 2 1/2 gulden.
1970-1978 a new design and replace the silver denominations with nickel and in 1979-1985 same design but replace the bronze denominations with aluminium.




1986-2010 Aruba and Netherlands Antilles
In 1986 Aruba became a separate country within they Kingdom, with our own currency the Aruban Florin (Afl/AWG). As already mentioned by jokinen the Netherlands Antilles changed it's design in 1989.

To complete:
2010 Split of Netherlands Antilles
BES islands became 3 Dutch special municipalities, which switched to the US Dollar after having chosen between NAD, USD and EUR. Curaçao and Sint-Maarten has become 2 constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (like Aruba did in 1986) but decided to keep the NAD up to the creation of the future CMG.

I am starting my Curaçao collection. It's interesting, as they have had their own coinage from 1799 to the 1820s, 1870s, 1900s and 1940s. Small "breaks" until I guess Curaçao started using the Netherlands Antilles guilder.

Some (more common ones) examples of coins minted for Curaçao:

It's also a beautiful place.