100 Ðồng

This note belongs to the second major emission of the Viet Minh financial apparatus, issued during the intensifying phase of the First Indochina War while the Democratic Republic of Vietnam controlled no major urban center and operated its treasury from jungle administrative zones. Printing was carried out under difficult conditions using locally available equipment, which accounts for the inconsistent ink registration and paper quality that runs throughout the entire P#53 series.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam had been issuing its own currency since 1946 partly to sever economic dependence on the Indochinese piastre — a political calculation as much as a monetary one. Notes from this emission circulated primarily in liberated rural zones, and surviving examples frequently show the heavy fold wear consistent with being carried in field conditions rather than handled in commercial transactions.