Catalog
100 Piastres
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indochine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1903-1907 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The obverse bears a central vignette with Vasco da Gama at left, sailing ships at lower centre, and a Polynesian man with paddle beside a dragon at right. The design is executed in an elaborate intaglio style characteristic of early twentieth-century French colonial banknote production. Issuing authority and denomination inscriptions appear in both French and Chinese characters, with the artists' credits reading A. BRAMTOT & G. DUVAL FEC. and J. ROBERT SC. in the lower margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in Chinese characters on a light grey guilloche underprint, arranged in vertical columns within decorative cartouches. The central field contains a large circular void framed by intricate scrollwork, with denomination and bank name inscriptions distributed across the surrounding panels. The text identifies the Banque de l'Indochine (東方滙理銀行) and specifies the note's value of one hundred piastres, with additional imperial decree references rendered in classical Chinese script. |
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| Comments |
The Banque de l'Indochine's 100 Piastres series was printed by the Imprimerie de la Banque de France — a relationship that gave the colonial issuer access to some of the finest intaglio work produced anywhere in the world at the time. Bramtot was a Prix de Rome winner whose allegorical work appeared frequently on French state commissions; his involvement here was not unusual, but it elevated the note considerably above typical colonial paper of the period.
The piastre at this date was pegged to silver, and the 1903–1907 window covers a period of genuine monetary instability as France debated whether to shift Indochinese currency toward a gold-exchange standard — a transition that eventually came in 1930.