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1 Dollar / 1 Piastre - Haïphong
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indo-Chine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1900-1903 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Auguste-Hilaire Léveillé |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette in intaglio, printed in red-orange, shows an allegorical composition: a crowned figure of France seated at right, holding a caduceus, with an Oriental woman seated at her feet to the left, amid drapery and foliage. The bank title 'BANQUE DE L'INDO-CHINE' appears in the upper panel, with the branch location 'HAÏPHONG' at the upper left. Denomination is expressed bilingually as 'ONE DOLLAR' and 'UNE PIASTRE', with decree dates and emission authorization text at upper right, and signature lines for 'Un Administrateur' and 'Le Directeur' below. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Reverse printed in red-orange, dominated by a large central panel of Chinese characters conveying the note's value and issuing authority, surrounded by an elaborate guilloche border with key-fret (meander) patterning. Two confronted dragon vignettes occupy the upper portion of the design, rendered in fine intaglio, flanking the central text field. Dollar value indicators '$1' appear in each corner, with the anti-counterfeiting penal code warning text printed in French in vertical panels on both the left and right margins. |
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| Comments |
The Banque de l'Indo-Chine was established by French decree in 1875, granted the monopoly of note issue across French Indochina and later extended into French India and the Pacific settlements. This early Haïphong-payable dollar note belongs to a period when the bank maintained regionally designated issues — each major commercial port, Haïphong, Saigon, Hanoi — had its own place of payment printed on the face, reflecting the colony's fragmented financial infrastructure rather than any difference in the underlying instrument.
Dupuis was among the most respected medallists of the Paris Mint in the late nineteenth century; his involvement signals that this issue was treated with the same seriousness as metropolitan currency. Léveillé's engraving work for the Banque de France gives the plates a pedigree unusual for a colonial note of this denomination.