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100 Francs B.I.C. overprint
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indo-Chine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1943 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Brown and green intaglio print over yellow underprint; black serial numbers at lower left and right. A bold black overprint reading "B.I.C." appears at top centre. The central vignette presents a front-facing allegorical female figure wearing a laurel wreath, holding a small statuette of Athena in her right hand, with a tree rendered in the background. Issuing authority and denomination inscriptions frame the vignette, with engraver credits "SÉB. LAURENT DEL" and "RITA SC" below. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Brown and green intaglio print over yellow underprint. The central vignette presents the four faces of the Bayon tower at Angkor Wat, Cambodia, rendered in fine engraving. Decorative gates with stylized flame motifs appear at top, left, and right borders. Text panels carry the denomination and issuing authority in French, Arabic, and Amharic scripts, with engraver credits at lower centre. |
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| Comments |
When the Free French authorities needed to supply currency to territories liberated from Vichy control, existing Indo-Chinese note stocks were overstamped "B.I.C." — Banque de l'Indo-Chine — to distinguish them from notes still circulating under Japanese-occupied administration. The overprint was a stopgap, not a planned issue, and the distinction mattered politically as much as monetarily.
The underlying plate was engraved by Marguerite Dreyfus, one of the few women working at that level in the Banque de France's atelier during the war years. She signed her work "Rita."