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20 Francs
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indochine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1945 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 20 Francs |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANQUE DE L'INDO-CHINE VINGT FRANCS DJIBOUTI LE PRÉSIDENT LE DIRECTEUR GÉNÉRAL 20 GOVERNMENT PRINTER PALESTINE (Translation: Bank of Indochina. Twenty francs. Djibouti. The President. The General Director.) |
| Reverse description | Printed in red on a yellow underprint, the reverse centres on a vignette of the mosque at Tadjourah, Djibouti, with the denomination numeral 20 placed to the right. The bank title BANQUE DE L'INDO-CHINE and the statutory anti-counterfeiting warning citing Article 139 of the Penal Code are inscribed across the note, with DJIBOUTI also present. The printer's imprint EMIL M. PIKOVSKY LTD. JERUSALEM appears at the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
The Banque de l'Indochine's wartime displacement is the key to understanding why this note exists at all. With France occupied and normal print channels severed, the bank arranged emergency production through Emil M. Pikovsky Ltd in Jerusalem — then under British Mandate administration — making this one of the more geographically improbable printing commissions in colonial currency history.
Pikovsky was a commercial printer, not a specialist security press, and the output reflects that. Registration inconsistencies are common across surviving examples. The series was intended for use in French territories in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, where the wartime supply of circulating notes had become critical by 1945.