Catalog
5 Piastres Green and brown
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indochine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1942-1945 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Piastres (5 ICFP) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette of an ornate laurel and berry wreath encircling the numeral 5, set within a fine guilloche frame. Denomination legend CINQ PIASTRES appears across the centre, flanked by script inscriptions in Khmer and Chinese characters at left and right respectively. Two manuscript signatures appear in the lower field, with a penal code warning in a cartouche below, all within a green and brown intaglio-printed border. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central vignette of a traditional Vietnamese pavilion set at the water's edge, surrounded by trees and rendered in fine intaglio line engraving. The denomination numeral 5 appears in ornamental roundels at each corner, with Chinese characters reading 東方匯理銀行 along the lower margin. The heading GIẤY NĂM ĐỒNG VÀNG is printed across the top in letterpress. |
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| Comments |
Printed locally by the Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient in Hanoi, this note was a product of wartime necessity — with maritime links to France severed under Japanese occupation, Banque de l'Indochine could no longer rely on metropolitan presses and turned to what was available in-country. The designer, Phạm Ngọc Khuê, was a Vietnamese artist, an unusual choice for a colonial currency institution not known for employing local talent in that capacity.
The 1942–1945 date range reflects the full span of the Japanese-controlled Vichy administration in Indochina, during which the Banque de l'Indochine operated under increasingly constrained conditions until the Japanese coup of March 1945 abruptly ended French administrative authority altogether.