100 Baht - Rama VIII Series 5, Type I red reverse

Printed in Tokyo during the Japanese occupation of Thailand, this note is one of the more direct artifacts of the wartime economic arrangement imposed on the country after December 1941. Japan pressured the Thai government into a fixed exchange rate heavily favoring the yen, and Japanese military expenditures were effectively financed through Thai currency issuance — notes like this one were part of that mechanism.

The National Printing Bureau had long experience producing foreign currency under contract, but the occupation-period Thai commissions were politically fraught. The red reverse distinguishes this Type I from the later Type II, a revision made during the same print run rather than as a separate series issue.