1 Piastre

The wartime production circumstances here are what make this issue significant. With metropolitan France under occupation and normal supply chains severed, Banque de l'Indochine was forced to print locally in Hanoi rather than through its usual French contractors — a logistical shift that shaped everything from ink quality to paper stock. The designer, Trần Tấn Lộc, was among the Vietnamese artists employed by the Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient, reflecting the practical realities of a colonial administration increasingly dependent on local skilled labor.

Japanese pressure on French Indochina intensified sharply by 1945, and the March coup effectively dismantled French administrative control. Notes from the tail end of this issue's production window exist in a genuinely uncertain political space.