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5 Đồng
| Issuer | Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam |
|---|---|
| Year | 1946-1948 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | First northern đồng (1946-1951) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | VIỆT NAM DÂN CHỦ CỘNG HOÀ GIẤY BẠC VIỆT-NAM NĂM ĐỒNG BỘ TRƯỞNG BỘ TÀI-CHÍNH GIÁM ĐỐC NGÂN KHỐ TRUNG ƯƠNG (Translation: Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Vietnamese Banknote, Five Đồng, Minister of Finance, Director of the Central Treasury) |
| Reverse description | A framed portrait of President Hồ Chí Minh occupies the left-centre field, rendered in fine line engraving within a rectangular border. An industrial vignette with factory smokestacks appears to the right of the portrait, accompanied by a block of Vietnamese legal tender text. The denomination NĂM ĐỒNG is stated at upper right, with multilingual value inscriptions in Khmer, Lao, and Chinese characters arranged vertically at right, and the full state title in Chinese reading right-to-left along the bottom margin. |
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| Comments |
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam issued its first independent currency in late 1946, just weeks after the outbreak of the Franco-Vietnamese War. These earliest notes were produced under extraordinarily difficult conditions — the nascent government lacked access to sophisticated printing infrastructure, and production shifted between locations as French military pressure intensified. The result is a series with considerable variation in paper quality, ink consistency, and watermark clarity across surviving examples.
Pick 4 is among the first emissions of a government that had existed for barely a year when it began issuing its own currency to replace colonial piastres — a deliberate act of economic separation from French Indochina's monetary system.