Catalog
50 Kip
| Issuer | Banque Nationale du Laos |
|---|---|
| Year | 1957-1962 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Lao script inscriptions frame a central vignette of the National Assembly building in Vientiane, flanked by ornate lintels with deity figures in traditional Lao temple-relief style. The Erawan three-headed elephant coat of arms appears within the composition, surrounded by intricate guilloche underprint work. Denomination numerals are positioned in the corners against a fine lathe-work border. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Central intaglio vignette of a mahout astride a working elephant hauling timber logs in a forested landscape, rendered in fine line engraving against a distant mountain horizon. The issuer title BANQUE NATIONALE DU LAOS runs in a banner across the top, with denomination numeral 50 repeated in all four corners within rosette cartouches. At the foot of the note, the anti-counterfeiting legend LE CONTREFACTEUR SERA PUNI CONFORMÉMENT À LA LOI appears above the value inscription CINQUANTE KIP, all printed in orange-red on a Lao decorative side-border surround. |
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| Comments |
The Banque Nationale du Laos was established in 1955 following the 1954 Geneva Accords, which formally ended French Indochina and left Laos nominally independent but deeply entangled in Cold War maneuvering. This first series of banknotes, of which the 50 Kip is a part, was produced while the country was receiving substantial U.S. economic assistance — a detail not unrelated to the choice of a Philadelphia security printer over the French establishments that had supplied the colonial piastre notes.
The question mark attached to SBNC's contracted date range in dealer records reflects a genuine gap: precise contract documentation for this series has not been publicly established, and attribution rests largely on printing style analysis and circumstantial sourcing records.