100 Ðồng

The 1981 series was issued during one of the most economically strained periods in postwar Vietnamese history — the country was under international embargo, heavily dependent on Soviet bloc support, and running a command economy that produced chronic shortages and suppressed wages. Notes of this series circulated hard and were rarely saved. Finding examples that haven't been folded into near-illegibility takes effort.

P#88 is among the higher denominations of the 1981 emission, yet 100 Đồng bought little by the mid-1980s as inflation accelerated toward the crisis that forced the 1985 monetary reform — a redenomination that wiped out savings and preceded Đổi Mới by two years.