How Playing Cards Saved a Colony's Economy
In 1685, the colony of New France (modern Canada) faced a severe shortage of French coins. To pay his soldiers, the governor took decks of ordinary playing cards, cut them, wrote monetary values on them, and signed them as official currency. This emergency "card money" was widely accepted by merchants and remained in circulation for decades, demonstrating that any medium can function as money if people trust it.
A Colony Without Coin
In the late seventeenth century, the French colony of New France was perpetually starved of physical currency. The settlement along the Saint Lawrence River depended almost entirely on supplies brought across the Atlantic from France, while its own exports—chiefly beaver pelts and timber—rarely balanced the ledger. Whenever French silver or gold coins arrived in Quebec, they did not stay long. Local merchants had to ship that specie right back to France to pay for manufactured goods, tools, clothing, and wine, creating a chronic drain of metallic money from the colonial economy.
The problem was worsened by geography and climate. Navigation on the Saint Lawrence River froze solid during the long Canadian winters, isolating the colony from Europe for roughly six months every year. If supply ships from France were delayed by weather, storms, or war, the colonial administration was left completely without funds to pay its civil servants, maintain fortifications, or provision the military garrison stationed to defend against the Iroquois Confederacy and English colonists.
The Emergency Measure of 1685
In June 1685, the financial crisis reached a breaking point. Jacques de Meulles, the colonial intendant responsible for civil administration and finance, found himself facing an empty treasury and mutinous French soldiers who had not been paid. The annual fleet from France had not arrived, and local merchants refused to extend any more credit to the crown. Borrowing from wealthy settlers was no longer an option, as Meulles had already exhausted his personal credit and borrowed all the coin he could find.
Unable to wait for the arrival of the king's ships, Meulles devised an improvised financial instrument. Because the colony lacked a printing press and had a shortage of fine paper, he requisitioned packs of ordinary playing cards. Meulles ordered the cards cut into halves, quarters, or left whole to represent different denominations. On each piece, he inscribed a specific monetary value, signed it, had it initialed by his clerk, and stamped it with his wax seal to deter forgery. He then issued these pieces of pasteboard to the soldiers as wages, accompanied by a public ordinance ordering merchants to accept the cards at face value.