Catalog
1000 Piastres
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indochine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1951 |
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| Printer | Banque de France, France |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A large sculptural face of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, rendered in the style of the Bayon temple reliefs, dominates the left side of the note, set against a twilight landscape with a rising moon and sweeping tree branches. An ornate Khmer-style arch occupies the centre, with denomination equivalents in Vietnamese, Chinese, Khmer, and Lao scripts arranged vertically at right. The anti-counterfeiting legal warning appears in a text block at lower right, with artists' credits in the lower margins. |
| Reverse lettering | GIẤY MỘT NGÀN ĐỒNG 壹仟元 ១០០០ រៀល ໑໐໐໐ ຫຼຽນ L'ART. 139 DU CODE PÉNAL PUNIT DES TRAVAUX FORCÉS CEUX QUI AURONT CONTREFAIT OU FALSIFIÉ LES BILLETS DE BANQUE AUTORISÉES PAR LA LOI P. JOUVE FEC. J. PIEL - G. BELTRAND SC. |
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| Comments |
The 1000 Piastres is among the highest-denomination notes ever issued for Indochina and appeared just as French authority in the region was collapsing under the weight of the First Indochina War. Banque de France handled the printing in Paris, which by 1951 was standard for high-value Indochina issues — the colonial infrastructure could not support security printing at that scale locally.
Paul Jouve was a genuine specialist in Asian and big-cat imagery, and his involvement here was not incidental. Jules Piel and Jacques Beltrand — the latter from the Beltrand engraving dynasty — translated Jouve's designs into intaglio with the kind of precision that made these notes technically sophisticated even as the currency itself was losing credibility on the ground in Hanoi and Saigon.
The piastre was formally replaced in 1952–1954 across the three successor states, making this note's working life extremely brief.