French / Peruvian, The Peruvian Guano Co. Ltd. Seal
French, Guano Seal, French/Peruvian Company Limited, Image & Found by John Webb.
Found in ?, diameter ?mm.
Arms of Peru, GOVERNEMENT PERUVIEN around DEPOSE below // AGENCE / DE / FRANCE, THE PERUVIAN GUANO Co LIMITED * around
A good example of this seal is shown on UKDFD as 47134.
One side shows the arms of Peru - a shield with three items. The bottom section depicts a cornucopia with coins coming out of it. This is symbolic of the nation’s mineral wealth. The top right section shows a cinchona tree, from which quinine (a drug that helps with Malaria) comes from. The top left section of the Peruvian coat of arms shows a relative of the llama known as a vicuna. Around this is the inscription GOVERNEMENT PERUVIEN and DEPOSE (trade mark) straight across the bottom. The other side has AGENCE / DE / FRANCE in straight lines across the middle and curved around this * THE PERUVIAN GUANO Co LIMITED .
The French involvement in the Peruvian guano trade is outlined in the History Today archive.
"From the early 1840s until the 1870s Peru enjoyed a prolonged period of economic and speculative euphoria known as the Guano Age.... It was a time when Peru became known to farmers in Europe and North America has the most important producer of guano, then the most highly valued natural fertiliser....
The first commercial shipments of guano to Europe were made by a joint venture of a Peruvian and a British merchant, thus setting the pattern for the guano trade. The British were interested in the ideas of Liebig and most readily adopted the new fertilisers. Throughout the nineteenth century Britain was the chief market for guano, a factor that reinforced London's role as the most important source of funds for Peru....
The Government held all the guano in a state monopoly and sold it on consignment; merchants shipped the guano to Europe or North America and sold it there for the Government, receiving a com mission on the sale. The Government retained ownership until the time of sale, and was willing to take all the risks because it believed that in this way it could more closely control both the amount sold and the price. But Peru received no income until after the sale and there were long delays between shipping and selling. Indeed, there were no incentives for the consignees to sell the guano quickly. It soon became apparent that for the consignees the longer the delay the better, for, to meet the needs of its Treasury, Peru borrowed from the consignees and paid them back, with interest, from the proceeds of the sale.
The consignees granted these lucrative short-term loans because they guaranteed their continued relationship with the Government. By the 1860s the business of providing advances to the Government became even more profitable than selling guano. The consignees were generally European merchant companies, the most prominent of them being Gibbs and Sons, which handled the most important markets until retiring from the guano trade in 1861. From the beginning Peruvian merchants tried to compete, but they could not raise the capital required to fit out ships, run agencies in Europe and, most importantly, make the advances to the Government. They also lacked the connections with European bankers that were needed when Peru wished to raise new foreign loans. Nonetheless the Peruvian merchants pressed the Government to adopt a policy that would favour them, and the Government responded in 1850 with a law that gave Peruvian companies preference in the guano trade. Despite this change, many European companies remained active in the trade by simply setting up Peruvian partnerships or agencies....
By the 1860s guano, Peruvian finances and foreign bondholders were intertwined in a way that effectively mortgaged Peru's future. There were many in Peru who wanted to change the situation. Their opportunity came in 1868. A new president, Colonel Josèrola proposed a bold change: the Government would sell, by contract, two million tons of guano in Peru to a company that would then sell the guano in Europe and provide the Government with fixed monthly payments. The company would also pay the interest on the foreign debt. The Government would thus have a steady, predict able income and be able to meet its international payments. When the Government announced the guano contract, Dreyfus Frères, a French merchant house, expressed an interest and began to negotiate for it. The contract required a great deal of capital and Dreyfus put together a group, the Guano Syndicate, to take the contract. The syndicate included Dreyfus Frérale, one of the new joint stock in vestment banks that were revolutionising the financial world of mid-nineteenth century Europe. The Syndicate, with a capital of 60,000,000 francs, had the resources to handle the contract and to float new bond issues. Dreyfus Frères consolidated the Syndicate's victory in 1870 with their appointment as financial agents for the Government in Europe.....
In fact, the best deposits in the Chincha Islands were almost depleted, and the intense, year-round mining of the guano by the Chinese labourers (discussed in the following article) had destroyed the nesting grounds of the birds....
Sales of other, cheaper fertilisers started to under cut guano sales...
Guano affairs were further complicated by the election of a new president, Manuel Pardo, who took office in August, 1872. As an associate of the former consignees and a former Minister of Finance, Pardo had been one of the leaders of the anti-Dreyfus campaign in 1869. Now, as president, he had a second chance to implement his ideas on national economic development. Un fortunately the Dreyfus contract, the two loans, inflation and unemployment gave him little freedom to change policy. Although hostile to Dreyfus, he had to continue to work with the French Syndicate. Pardo's election was a cause for concern to the Guano Syndicate, whose own affairs had not been going well...
Eventually an Anglo-Peruvian syndicate, the Peruvian Guano company, took on the new contract. But the Guano Syndicate still had over 500,000 tons of guano left to sell...
The Guano Age came to a catastrophic close in the War of the Pacific. During the war Peru lost control of its guano and nitrate deposits and their revenue....
Peru at the end of the Guano Age was bankrupt and struggling through a long recovery. For a time sugar production, in which Auguste Dreyfus took some interest, replaced guano as a sup port for the economy, but the economy was badly shaken by the speculation of the Guano Age. The management of many of Peru's resources was in the hands of a modern, foreign corporation acting in the interest of its British share holders. The days when Peru could deal with small merchant houses were past. Peru was now confronted by the domination of European finance capital. That was the legacy of the Guano Age."