[rkagerer]

But it's not government issued (or at least not by any "federal" level agency).

Per https://news.yale.edu/2015/09/22/living-artifact-dutch-golde...

The bonds were issued by the Hoogheemraadschap Lekdijk Bovendams, a water board composed of landowners and leading citizens that managed dikes, canals, and a 20-mile stretch of the lower Rhine in Holland called the Lek. (Stichtse Rijnlanden is a successor organization to Lekdijk Bovendams.)

[gpvos]

Water boards are an actual layer of government in the Netherlands, they levy taxes and there are elections for them. I don't know their exact powers regarding contracts.

[nl]

> Dutch water boards had relative financial autonomy, which protected them from falling fortunes of the central government and allowed the securities that they issued to survive. The lives of perpetual loans typically were “cut short by imprudent financing, government recall, or the misfortunes of wars and revolutions,” Rouwenhorst and Goetzmann write.

https://news.yale.edu/2015/09/22/living-artifact-dutch-golde...