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5 Piastres
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indo-Chine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette depicts a harbour scene with sailing ships at lower left, rendered in intaglio; a floral spray occupies the lower centre. The note is framed by elaborate dragon-head ornaments at each corner, with the denomination CINQ PIASTRES in large letterpress across the upper field beneath the issuer title BANQUE DE L'INDO-CHINE. Date and place of issue read SAIGON, le 10 Février 1920, with two manuscript signatures below the titles Un Administrateur and L'Administrateur-Directeur. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A large coiling dragon rendered in fine line engraving dominates the left half of the note, its body curling into an oval reserve at centre. The right portion carries Chinese and Vietnamese script characters within a decorative cartouche, surrounded by intricate guilloche borders. A warning text in French against counterfeiting runs along the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
Pick 40 emerged from a specific administrative gap: French Indochina had no local printing capacity, so all currency production ran through the Banque de France in Paris, a logistical dependency that made wartime supply precarious and postwar restocking slow. The 1920 date reflects restocking after the First World War disrupted earlier shipments rather than a fresh issue tied to any monetary reform.
Ruffe's engraving work for the Banque de France was consistently fine-line, and this note benefits from that precision — though the humid circulation conditions of Indochina were hard on French-printed paper, and genuinely uncirculated survivors are disproportionately rare relative to the series' original print run.