This card has two important connections with our theme.
The first connection is that though this set shows the various uses of gold, this card shows it being converted into items, namely (as this is the German version of this set), "Munze", which is German for money.
The second connection, though, relates directly to the Dutch Guilder, which actually means "Gold Coin" - and that coin has one of the longest continuous usages of all, from 1434 until 2002.
The set was issued in several versions; in Belgium and France as "L`Or", in Germany (our version) as "Das Gold", in Italy, as "L`Oro", and in the Netherlands as "Het Goud". All of these literally mean "The Gold", but collectors seem to refer to it as simply "Gold". Strangely the easiest to acquire seem to be the Belgian and the German, and though the French set has the same title, it is one of the hardest to find, though, for some reason, the Netherlands one is really scarce.
As for the cards in this set, they are very well drawn, though the first four cards are concerned with different ways of extracting the gold, the fifth, ours, showing what is usually done with it, and the last of all being three men and a woman working on objects, whilst displayed in the front of the card are golden treasures. The full list of cards is :
- Gold hunting in the Klondyke
- Extracting gold from soil with a hopper
- Mining in the Transvaal
- Washing gold in Africa
- Minting money
- A goldsmith at work