10 Đồng Pagoda, Silver issue

Vietnam issued both a standard base-metal and this .900 silver version of the 1989 Pagoda 10 Đồng simultaneously, a pattern the State Bank followed for several collector pieces during the late 1980s as the country sought hard currency through numismatic exports while the domestic economy was being restructured under Đổi Mới — the reform program launched in 1986 that began dismantling centralized price controls and state trading monopolies.

The silver variant was never intended for circulation. Export sales to foreign collectors were one of the few reliable sources of convertible currency available to Hanoi at the time.