1 Tael

Produced under the Japanese occupation administration after France fell in 1940, this tael was struck specifically for the opium trade monopoly operated across Indochina — not for general circulation. The French colonial apparatus continued functioning under Vichy authority until the Japanese coup of March 9, 1945, and the opium revenue system was one of the mechanisms both regimes had strong financial incentives to maintain. Mintage figures are poorly documented, and surviving examples are genuinely scarce.

The tael denomination itself follows Chinese commercial weight standards rather than the French metric system, reflecting the coin's intended use in a specific regional trade network rather than the broader colonial economy.