Catalog
1 Piastre
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indochine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1932 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | To the right, an intaglio vignette portrays a young Indochinese woman in traditional dress and jewellery with her hair pinned up, set against a background vignette of a pagoda temple reflected in water. The left portion of the note is occupied by a rectangular guilloche panel framed by ornamental corner borders, with the serial number and two facsimile signatures for Le Président and Le Directeur Général positioned above the denomination cartouche. The legend UNE PIASTRE appears in a cartouche at the bottom centre, with the engravers' credits SEB. LAURENT FEC. and HOURRIEZ SC. at the lower margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The central intaglio vignette presents a bare-chested male peasant in a conical hat carrying two baskets of fruit suspended from a shoulder pole, with a rural settlement in the background. Chinese characters appear vertically at the left margin, while Cambodian script numerals and an ornamental guilloche panel occupy the right portion. The Vietnamese title inscription GIẤY MỘT ĐỒNG VÀNG runs across the upper portion of the note, with the engravers' credits at the lower corners. |
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| Comments |
The Banque de l'Indochine's small-denomination piastre notes of the early 1930s were produced in enormous print runs to serve daily transactional needs across French Indochina — a currency zone spanning five distinct territories with radically different local economies. The Banque de France's workshops handled production, as they did for most Indochine issues of this period, with Hourriez's intaglio engraving work giving even the lowest denominations a finish well above what the face value might suggest warranted.
Pick 52 is notably difficult to find in anything above heavily circulated grades. The small format accelerated physical deterioration, and the tropical climate of the region was hard on paper stock.