Catalog
5 Riels
| Issuer | National Bank of Cambodia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1979 |
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| Value | 5 Riels |
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| Obverse description | At left, a vignette of Khmer factory workers in an industrial setting; at right, the State Emblem of the People's Republic of Kampuchea. The denomination numeral appears below the central design, with the date 1979 inscribed at the bottom. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The central vignette presents an intaglio-engraved view of the Victory Monument (Independence Monument) in Phnom Penh, rendered in deep carmine-red on a light guilloche underprint, set against an elaborately engraved clouded sky with surrounding tropical foliage. Denomination numerals appear in the upper corners and at lower right in Arabic numerals, with Khmer script at lower left and centre below the vignette. |
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| Comments |
This note was issued in the immediate aftermath of the Khmer Rouge period, when the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea needed to reintroduce a monetary system from nothing. The Pol Pot regime had abolished money entirely in 1975 — banks were demolished, currency was destroyed, and financial infrastructure was systematically erased. The 1979 series, of which P#29 is part, was printed before the new state had fully consolidated control, making the circumstances of its distribution genuinely chaotic.
The National Bank of Cambodia had to be reconstituted from scratch, staffed largely by survivors with no institutional continuity to draw from.