Catalog
| Issuer | National Bank of Vietnam |
|---|---|
| Year | 1951 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Thomas De La Rue & Company, London |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of Ho Chi Minh at left within a plain border, set against an elaborate rosette guilloche vignette at centre bearing the large numeral 10. Chinese characters for 'ten yuan' appear in the left margin, with the prefix letters and serial number in red across the upper field. The denomination legend MUOI DONG is printed in a panel at the bottom, with a continuous micro-text band of the value running along the lower border. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse lettering | NGÂN HÀNG QUỐC GIA VIỆT NAM (Translation: National Bank of Vietnam) 元拾 MUOI DONG |
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| Comments |
The National Bank of Vietnam was established by the Associated State government in 1951, the same year this note entered circulation — making it among the first issues from an institution that had existed for only months. De La Rue printed the series in London at a moment when Saigon's monetary infrastructure was being built from scratch, separated from the Indochinese piastre system that had governed the region under French colonial banking.
The Bảo Đại government's new currency faced an immediate credibility problem: the Việt Minh had been issuing their own notes since 1946, and competing paper currencies were circulating in contested territories simultaneously.