20 Đồng

The Ngân hàng Quốc gia Việt Nam — the State Bank of Vietnam — was established in 1951 as a direct instrument of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's drive to operate a genuinely independent monetary system, separate from the Indochinese piastre still controlled through French colonial banking structures. This 20 Đồng note from the following year belongs to the earliest phase of that project, when the new bank was still consolidating its printing and distribution infrastructure under wartime conditions.

Surviving examples in any respectable condition are genuinely uncommon. The paper deteriorates readily in the climate of northern Vietnam, and much of the issued stock saw hard use in rural wartime circulation.