Money-hungry animals keep DNB busy

It’s a colourful anecdote, but far from an isolated incident. Cows, pigs, goats, dogs, parrots, monkeys and even babies: since the nineteenth century, desperate owners have been turning to DNB with banknotes that have been chewed up. One of the earliest known examples took place in Amsterdam in 1897 and even made the newspapers.

A 25-guilder note suddenly went missing from a family home. Mum had only just held it in her hand and slipped it into her back pocket, but no matter how hard they looked, the note was nowhere to be found. Then the daughter hesitantly suggested a suspect: Niep, the young dog. After all, he gobbled up everything he came across.

When the son of the house, a doctor by profession, came home and heard the story, he called the dog over. Niep came running up, wagging his tail cheerfully, completely unaware of what was to happen. After having been administered a simple medicine, the truth soon came to light. Bit by bit, the missing banknote reappeared from Niep’s stomach. The scraps were carefully rinsed, stuck onto paper and left to dry. Once the missing serial number had finally been found, the damaged banknote could be sent to De Nederlandsche Bank for exchange. The family's desperation is easier for the modern reader to understand once we consider the purchasing power of 25 guilders in 1897. In fact, that amount would have the purchasing power of more than €400 in 2026!

Some animals preferred to focus on small change. For example, in 1922, a butcher found the following in a cow’s stomach: a 25-cent piece, a 10-cent piece and a 1-cent piece. The cow was not particularly fussy, mind you: twelve nails and a shoe heel were also found in its stomach.

But cows and dogs were not the only culprits. Newspapers also reported cases of goats getting hold of banknotes. In 1933, for example, a voracious goat managed to gobble up no fewer than 220 guilders in banknotes from a farmer’s waistcoat. It proved to be her last meal, as the owner’s response was severe. He took the goat to the slaughterhouse, where it was butchered. The banknotes were recovered in a badly damaged condition, prompting the farmer to contact De Nederlandsche Bank, which, according to a newspaper report, was “currently investigating whether the money can be returned to the farmer” Incidentally, the goat wasn’t the strangest case. According to a DNB anecdote from 1984, a five-guilder note was once eaten by a rat. But that wasn’t the end of the story: the rat had itself been eaten by a cat. In the end, the cat had to be cut open to recover the money. So animals were both perpetrators and, at times, victims.

Fortunately, there was also a more animal-friendly approach. A newspaper report from 1962 recounts how a cattle farmer had a terrible fright when he discovered that his wallet, containing 5,000 guilders, was missing. After a frantic search, the police were called. The crime scene was identified, as were the suspects: three cows in a meadow. When the vet arrived, it was decided to carry out an emergency operation, similar to the procedure used when a cow has swallowed something sharp, such as a small blade. But which cow was the prime suspect?

"Who fancies another wallet?" asked the vet.

He held out a wallet to cow number one. The animal turned away.

Cow number two wasn’t keen on wallets either.

But look: cow number three did fancy a nibble.

"That's the one!" cried the vet.

The operation lasted from half past one until half past five. The cow made a full recovery and suffered no lasting effects. Meanwhile, what remained of the wallet and the money were sent to De Nederlandsche Bank, where experts investigated how much of the original value could still be recovered. Yet tracking down the culprit cow proved to be easier than reconstructing the banknotes.

It fell to DNB to carry out the rather unpleasant task of investigating these smelly notes. "How much can we reconstruct?” was the key question. The amount of compensation depended on how much of the notes was still intact. This is intended to prevent fraud. After all, if DNB always paid out the full value, someone could cut a single banknote into dozens of pieces and hand them in one by one. The same banknote would then be compensated several times.

Was it a genuine banknote? And how much of it remained? Answering those questions required enormous precision and effort. Through the years, DNB staff had to dismantle mouse nests; rinse away manure in search of scraps; examine stomach contents (in fact, someone once even sent an entire cow’s stomach to DNB); and fit together thousands of pieces of paper like a jigsaw puzzle.

When a desperate man contacted DNB in 1963 because mice had shredded his banknotes, the Bank was unsentimental: a member of staff advised him to remove all the skirting boards, clear out every mouse nest – made from scraps of banknotes! – and simply send the lot to the Bank. And that is exactly what happened. After spending weeks carefully sifting through the nests, piece by piece, with magnifying glasses and tweezers, the man was reimbursed for almost the entire amount. Expensive nests!

This was no one-off exercise. In the mid-1960s, DNB handled around three thousand cases of damaged banknotes each year and paid out a quarter of a million guilders. Four DNB staff members worked full-time on the reconstruction of banknotes. Thanks to special training at the banknote printing works, they knew exactly where every dash, line and symbol was meant to go.

And what became of the banknotes swallowed by Hermina the cow at the start of this story? Wearing clothes pegs on their noses, DNB staff examined the remains. The result: banknotes worth 3,750 guilders were recovered. It was a grubby, time-consuming process: because of the foul stench, staff could bear to examine the remains for no more than an hour a day!

Why did this happen so often? Many payments were made in cash. And people frequently carried large sums with them, making losses caused by hungry animals all the more serious. What’s more, people often kept their money at home rather than putting it in the bank. This created a high risk of damage or loss, particularly for those who kept animals. An analysis from 1960 reflects this:

"Most of the damaged banknotes are sent in by farmers. It seems that people in rural areas still don’t have much faith in banks and prefer to keep their savings, as they always have, tucked away in their stockings."

Even when a banknote had been torn, gnawed, chewed up or turned into a mouse’s nest, DNB tried to determine how much value could still be verified. And this work is not merely a thing of the past. Even today, people can apply to DNB for compensation for damaged euro banknotes and coins. The same basic principle still applies: how much of the money remains, and how much can be accounted for?

This menagerie of culprits shows just how much detective work may be needed to establish the verifiable remaining value of damaged banknotes. And sometimes that work began with a smelly parcel sent straight to Amsterdam from a pigsty, a slaughterhouse or a cowshed.