Catalog
100 Francs
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indochine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1945 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Brown intaglio print on a New Caledonia P-46b base note, overstamped with a red oval handstamp reading NOUVELLES HÉBRIDES FRANCE LIBRE, incorporating a palm-tree vignette and the Cross of Lorraine. The central vignette presents a seated female allegorical figure with a wreath, accompanied by a small statuette of Athena. Inscriptions and denomination appear in letterpress. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | BANQUE DE L`INDOCHINE CENT 100 FRANCS NOUMÉA (Translation: Bank of Indochina Hundred Francs Noumea) |
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| Comments |
Banque de l'Indochine's 100 Francs notes of this type were ordinarily printed in France, but the fall of metropolitan France in 1940 severed that supply chain entirely. Australia stepped in as the emergency alternative, with the Note Printing Branch in Melbourne producing several Indochina issues during the war years — a geographical and institutional arrangement that would have been unthinkable in peacetime colonial finance.
The 1945 date places this note in the final turbulent months before Japan's March coup de force dismantled French colonial authority in Indochina, after which circulating currency became a genuinely unstable proposition.