1 Tael

Issued by the Banque de l'Indochine under Japanese occupation, this tael was struck not in Indochina but in Switzerland — the Bern mint produced these pieces while the Pacific theater made colonial minting infrastructure largely inaccessible. The choice of the tael denomination, a traditional Southeast Asian weight unit rather than the piastre system France had imposed, was a deliberate concession to local trade practices in opium-producing highland regions where the coin was intended to circulate.

The Japanese military administration tolerated Vichy French banking operations in Indochina until March 1945, when a swift coup dismantled the colonial apparatus entirely. Coins of this issue saw less than two years of possible circulation before that collapse.