1 Gulden Kopergeld

De Javasche Bank was established by Dutch royal charter in 1828, just years before this note appeared, and its early paper issues faced an uphill battle in a colonial economy where Chinese traders and local populations alike distrusted anything that wasn't specie. The "kopergeld" designation — copper money — was a deliberate fiction meant to anchor the note's psychological value to the copper coinage it nominally represented, rather than to silver or gold.

Surviving examples from this 1832 issue are exceptionally rare. The Dutch East Indies climate was brutal on paper currency, and redemption cycles destroyed much of what circulation didn't.