Central Bank / Monetary Authority (Merchant form, 1609)

Class card for the founding generation of state-chartered monetary-authority institutions (~1609–1844): exchange banks operating under municipal or sovereign charter, accepting commodity-backed merchant deposits, providing payment clearing across a fragmented coinage landscape, and stabilizing exchange rates. The Amsterdam Wisselbank (Amsterdamsche Wisselbank, founded 1609 by the City of Amsterdam) is the prototype; precursors include the Venetian Banco di Rialto (1587) and Banco Giro (1619). The machine's operational grammar: the city or sovereign grants a monopoly charter; merchants deposit foreign coin at a standardized "bank money" (bankgeld) rate crediting deposits at fixed agio; the bank clears intermerchant payments via ledger transfer, eliminating physical coin transport; exchange rate stability follows from the deposit-reserve rule. Key distinctions from its successor: the Wisselbank-class does NOT issue banknotes (note monopoly is the typology-break that defines BoE-Gold-1844 form); it is NOT a lender of last resort (Bagehot's principle arrives only in 1873); and its coupling is primarily to the merchant class rather than to the state as borrower. Substrate is [corporeal, social]: vaults, bullion, ledger registers, and the legal fiction of the charter body; the semiotic substrate (fiat note issuance as a distinct monetary instrument) does not appear until the Gold-1844 generation. Lineage break at ~1844 triggers when the Bank of England gains note monopoly (output_category_replacement: clearing-only → clearing + note issuance) and simultaneously deepens its constitutive coupling to sovereign state debt (coupling_typology_shift: merchant-primary → government-primary).