50 Cents

By 1942, the Gouvernement Général was operating under Japanese occupation and cut off from metropolitan French printing resources. The Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient in Hanoi — already the colony's primary press for official documents — became the only practical option for emergency fractional currency. Phạm Ngọc Khuê's involvement as designer marks one of the few instances of a locally credited Vietnamese artist on an Indochinese government issue of this period.

The 1942 small-denomination series was partly a response to acute coin shortages after Japanese forces disrupted regional metal supplies and shipping. These notes circulated heavily and surviving examples in decent condition are genuinely uncommon.