An additional 100,000 of these silver guldens were minted dated 1966, but by then it was becoming increasingly clear that silver—after a run of some 26 centuries—was finished as a metal suitable for circulating coinage. The ’66 mintage was stillborn, leaving the 1962-dated coins like this one as the only Suriname 1-gulden pieces officially issued to circulation.
Nor did the 1-gulden denomination appear as a base-metal coin. When a copper-nickel equivalent did finally appear in 1987, it had been redenominated as a 100-cent piece—a fact that would have interesting consequences a few years into the 21st century.
Suriname had long since gained full independence from the Dutch (1975) when, on 1 January 2004, it replaced the old gulden with a Suriname dollar at a rate of 1000 old to 1 new. To avoid the cost of replacing the coinage, Suriname’s cent-denominated coins remained current as fractional coins of the new dollar.
So the 100-cent pieces had their face-value instantly increased a thousand-fold. This 1-gulden piece, on the other hand, simply slipped further into the past.
v.
