20 Piastres

The Banque de l'Indo-Chine occupied an unusual legal position — it was a private institution operating under a French government concession, which meant these notes carried quasi-official authority without being government paper in the strict sense. The concession system gave the bank a monopoly on note issue across French Indochina, and Paris-printed notes like this one were shipped out to branch offices in Saigon, Hanoi, Haiphong, Phnom Penh, and beyond.

Ruffé was among the more accomplished engravers working at the Banque de France atelier during this period. The plate quality on this series reflects that — detail retention even on heavily circulated examples tends to be markedly better than on comparable colonial issues from competing printers.