Isles of France & of Bourbon

[nutmegcollector]

I have a Isles of France & of Bourbon 500 Livres Tournois 1788 note. This assignat is from the early French revolutionary era, possibly a contemporary counterfeit. There is some writing in the back. I think it's in French. Anybody know what it says?

 

 

[Dave M]

Interesting piece! Yes the text on the back is in french, and while I can't decipher it all, it looks like a note from the seller regarding who bought it (15 francs) and an address of where to send it. At least that's the way I'm reading it

 

Dave

[nutmegcollector]

Interesting piece! Yes the text on the back is in french, and while I can't decipher it all, it looks like a note from the seller regarding who bought it (15 francs) and an address of where to send it. At least that's the way I'm reading it

 

Dave

 

Thanks, Dave. I wonder why he wrote this info on the back of the note he was selling. Nobody in his right mind would do that.

[Dave M]

I agree, it makes no sense at all, and perhaps my unscrambling is completely wrong, I always have a hard time with that old cursive text. It that on a separate piece of paper glued to the back of the actual note?

 

Dave

[nutmegcollector]

I agree, it makes no sense at all, and perhaps my unscrambling is completely wrong, I always have a hard time with that old cursive text. It that on a separate piece of paper glued to the back of the actual note?

 

Dave

 

yes, on separate paper glued on. hmmm... maybe the note was worthless back then or maybe he's not a paper money collector.

[Dave M]

Tom, I was looking at my catalog and noticed something a bit odd. This note comes in two flavors that I can see, based on whether the signatures on the left and right are made by hand or stamped. In your note, you have no signatures at all on the left and right, only the two in the center. I'm not too familiar with hand manuscript signatures, perhaps they can "disappear" over time? Or maybe this is sort of a remainder, from a stack of notes that never was signed and put into circulation?

 

Dave

[nutmegcollector]

Tom, I was looking at my catalog and noticed something a bit odd. This note comes in two flavors that I can see, based on whether the signatures on the left and right are made by hand or stamped. In your note, you have no signatures at all on the left and right, only the two in the center. I'm not too familiar with hand manuscript signatures, perhaps they can "disappear" over time? Or maybe this is sort of a remainder, from a stack of notes that never was signed and put into circulation?

 

Dave

 

Dave, you're right. There are several signature (or no signature) variations. The following two are currently on Collect Plaza auction. The one with signatures obviously written by hand. The one w/o signatures is listed as possible counterfeit.

 

 

[Rhino]

Could that handwritten piece on the back actually be a note describing what the item was, and what auction it might have come from in the past, like "formerly .. item 112". ? I don't read French, but that's the first thing that came to mind as a possible explanation when I saw that.

[nutmegcollector]

Could that handwritten piece on the back actually be a note describing what the item was, and what auction it might have come from in the past, like "formerly .. item 112". ? I don't read French, but that's the first thing that came to mind as a possible explanation when I saw that.

 

hmmmm... interesting. I notice it was wriiten on a piece of paper and then cut and pasted to the back of the note. Part of the letter "y" at the bottom appears to be cut off.

[chinnotes]

1) The language used is not French, but German! The text was written with old German script, called Sütterlin script (Sütterlin was the “inventor” of this script). . In the last years of WWII when I was about 6 years old we still had to learn this kind of writing which was used only in Germany…but immediately after WWII we had to switch to “normal” writing…

 

Unfortunately I am unable to read all words, one word I cannot scrutinize..….: “Preis 15 Francs. Diese correspond. In Collectionneur des Ed. Prévot 4 Jahrgang …. No.112”.

 

“correspond.” is an abbreviation of “correspondieren” which in modern German is written with “k”: korrespondieren.

 

“Collectionneur” refers to “Le journal des collectionneurs” which was a journal for collectors of –amongst others- coins and paper money. I saw some pieces of this journal, issued 1900 and a few years later.

 

The translation of the text is: ”Price 15 francs. This (note) corresponds to (the note described )in (the journal) Collectionneur of Ed(uard) Prévot, 4th year, ….No.112”. The word I cannot read may have the meaning “page”, “paragraph” or something like that.

 

2) The note is a forgery, that is absolutely sure. There is even a typographical error on the note: “énormement” (without accent aigu) instead of “énormément.

 

3) Because of the certainly old text glued to the back of the note this must be a very old counterfeit, probably a counterfeit of the time… Only by the reform of orthography which took place in 1919 the word "correspondieren" was changed to "korrespondieren".

 

Erwin

[nutmegcollector]

Erwin, Thank you for the translation. Very interesting.