1000 Kip

P#14 spans an unusually long issue window — 1963 to 1976 — covering the final years of the Royal Lao Government and its increasingly desperate financial position as the Pathet Lao tightened control over the country. By the early 1970s, Laos was running chronic deficits underwritten largely by U.S. aid, and the 1000 Kip denomination represented serious money in a country where inflation was eroding purchasing power steadily through the conflict years.

Thomas De La Rue handled the printing throughout, which gave the series a consistency the political situation on the ground entirely lacked. When the Pathet Lao took Vientiane in December 1975 and established the Lao PDR, this note was withdrawn and replaced — the entire Royal currency system was swept out within months.