Catalog
20 Dollars / 20 Piastres
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indo-Chine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1876-1892 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is dominated by an intricate guilloche pattern forming a large central oval medallion, surrounded by dense microtext border panels repeated in a grid arrangement. Chinese characters appear in each corner panel and along the lateral margins, providing the denomination and issuer details in script for circulation in Chinese-speaking communities. The overall design is executed in a single pale blue-grey intaglio print with no pictorial vignette, relying entirely on fine-line geometric and typographic security elements. |
| Reverse lettering | 二十元 二十圓 仁義禮智 有財用 |
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| Comments |
The Banque de l'Indo-Chine, established by decree in January 1875, received its concession to issue currency across French Indochina just as France was consolidating its hold over Cochinchina and pressing deeper into Tonkin. This note belongs to the bank's earliest issue series — the bilingual denomination pairing of dollars and piastres reflecting the monetary reality of a region where the Mexican silver dollar remained the dominant trade coin throughout the 1870s and beyond.
Bramtot was primarily known as a painter and Prix de Rome winner; his involvement in banknote design was unusual. Wullschleger's engraving for the Banque de l'Indo-Chine series is considered among the finer intaglio work produced for French colonial currency of the period. The plate was printed in France and shipped out for issue — a logistical arrangement that made emergency replacement of damaged stock extremely slow.