10 Gourdes

Haiti's 1871 10 Gourdes issue came at a moment of chronic fiscal instability — the government had been cycling through foreign loans and internal currency crises since independence, and paper emissions of this period were frequently issued well beyond any metallic backing. The Gourde itself had been pegged, in theory, to the French franc system, but in practice the exchange rate against hard currency was essentially whatever commerce would bear on a given day.

Pick 64 is genuinely scarce. Most Haitian paper from this decade did not survive the humidity, political upheavals, and periodic currency withdrawals that followed successive administrations. Surviving examples tend to show significant handling.