The guilder (Dutch: gulden, pronounced [ˈɣʏldə(n)] ⓘ) or florin was the currency of the Netherlands from 1434 until 2002, when it was replaced by the euro.

The gulden emerged as the official currency of the Burgundian Netherlands after the 1434 monetary reform done under Philip the Good.

The most notable version of the latter, the Flemish grote, subsequently depreciated faster than its counterparts in France, from its initial fine silver content of 4.044 g, to around 2.5 g by 1350 AD, and to just 0.815 g before the reforms of 1434.

[8] Philip the Good devised a monetary system in 1434 relating the new Dutch currency to that of its neighbors: the French livre parisis of 38.25 g silver, and the English pound sterling of 215.8 g.[9][circular reference][6] The following units were defined: The stuiver weighed 3.4 g of 23⁄48 silver fineness[7] and was divided into 8 duiten or 16 penningen.

French écus, English nobles & Dutch florins comprised the gold currency of the Low Countries and had a variable rate against the stuiver.

A denomination worth 1 Gulden did not exist until the 1464 issue of the Sint Andries florin containing 2.735 g of fine gold, but this was a mere two years before the resumption of debasements in the stuiver.

From 1469 to 1475 an agreement with England made the English groat (4-pence; 2.88 g fine silver) mutually exchangeable with the Burgundian double patard (or 2-stuiver) minted under Charles the Rash.

The pace of depreciation of the Gulden quickened in the second half of the 16th century amidst the huge influx of precious metals from Germany & Spanish America arriving through the Habsburg Netherlands.

The inevitable official acceptance of new, debased rates for the gulden only set the stage for the next round of depreciations.

[11] As a result, the gulden equivalent of different trade coins passing through the Low Countries also rose in value, as follows:[12] The solution which immediately halted the downward spiral of the gulden was the establishment of the Amsterdam Wisselbank (Bank of Amsterdam) in 1609, mandated to accept & assay the bullion content of coins received from its depositors, and then to credit the equivalent of 1 Rijksdaalder (2+1⁄2 gulden after 1618) for each 25.40 g fine silver actually received.

Combined with rules requiring payments above 600 gulden to be cleared through the bank, it halted incentives for provinces to tamper with the silver content of its coins.

In 1626, Pieter Schaghen wrote in Dutch of the purchase of "the Island Manhattes" (Manhattan) "from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders.

"[13] Even with the Bank of Amsterdam's success in halting the depreciation of Dutch currency, attempts to further increase the stuiver equivalent of trade coins continued among the provinces.

These reforms helped cement the Dutch Republic's role as Europe's financial center, made the Bank of Amsterdam the world's first modern central bank, and made the bank-stabilized Gulden as Europe's de facto reserve currency until the end of the 18th century.

[15] As the bank was also an active reseller of negotiepenningen, or trade coins that happen to be undervalued in the Netherlands (e.g. older rixdollars still valued at 50 stuivers currency), Dutch trade coins like lion dollars, rixdollars and silver ducats were exported and became staple currency for the rest of Europe until the end of the 18th century.

[17] The gulden design featured Pallas Athena standing, holding a spear topped by a hat in her right hand,[18] resting with her left forearm on Gospels set on an ornate basis, with a small shield in the legend.

Following the collapse of the Bank of Amsterdam in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1817 the United Kingdom of the Netherlands redefined the Gulden as either 9.613 g silver or 0.60561 g gold.

This standard was doomed to fail due to Following Belgium's secession from the Netherlands in 1830, a more permanent solution was implemented in 1840 by reducing the Gulden to 9.45 g fine silver and repealing its fixed equivalence in gold.

[19] One Dutch guilder in 1914 could buy roughly the same amount of goods and services as 10.02 U.S. dollars or 8.17 euros in December 2017.

In 1949, the peg was changed to 3.8 guilders = 1 dollar, approximately matching the devaluation of the British pound.

[20] There are some exceptions to this, and furthermore no banknote received as payment for commercial goods or services after 27 January 2002 is exchangeable.

Large quantities of pre-war type silver 10 and 25 cent and 1 guilder coins were minted in the United States between 1943 and 1945 for use following liberation.

New bronze 1 and 5 cent coins featuring Queen Wilhelmina on the obverse were issued, phasing out previous types.

In 1950, Queen Juliana's profile replaced the image of Wilhelmina on the obverse (front) of all coins.

An anti-counterfeit warning appeared on the reverse side of all guilder banknotes prior to the final series with the exception of the ƒ250 "lighthouse" note, repeated multiple times in microprint (a technique later used on some banknotes of the Indonesian rupiah): Criminal Code Article 208: Anyone who counterfeits or falsifies coins or banknotes with the intention of issuing or having them issued as genuine and unaltered shall be punished with a prison sentence of no more than nine years.Eventually, the warning was replaced with a subtle message on the obverse side: "Counterfeiters or falsifiers will be punished", which first appeared inside a small square on the ƒ250 "lighthouse" note while still referencing the aforementioned Article 208.