Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
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 |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Printed in red with a yellow underprint, the obverse displays the denomination numeral at left alongside a circular vignette at right, all set against a bicolour ground with black serial numbers. The issuing bank title, place name DJIBOUTI, and signature titles LE PRÉSIDENT and LE DIRECTEUR GÉNÉRAL are arranged across the face of the note. The printer's imprint GOVERNMENT PRINTER PALESTINE appears at the base. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| 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. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| 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.