1 Dollar / 1 Piastre - Saigon

The Banque de l'Indo-Chine was a private Parisian institution operating under a government concession, not a colonial treasury — a distinction that mattered considerably when disputes arose over note acceptance in the interior. This particular series, denominated in both dollars and piastres to serve the dual commercial vocabularies of Cochinchina and the wider regional trade network, was engraved by Auguste-Hilaire Léveillé, one of the principal engravers at the Imprimerie nationale in Paris, working from designs credited to Duval and the medallist Dupuis.

Dupuis's involvement is the genuinely interesting detail here. Jean-Baptiste-Daniel Dupuis was primarily a sculptor and medal-maker of considerable reputation, and his contributions to banknote design were relatively few — his name on a note is not routine.