50 Xu - Bảo Đại Piefort Essai

Piéforts are struck at roughly double the normal planchet thickness as presentation or pattern pieces, and this aluminium example from the 1953 Vietnamese monetary reform sits in that category. France was in the final months of its control over Indochina — Điện Biên Phủ fell less than a year later — and the Associated State of Vietnam was establishing its own currency infrastructure under the Banque Nationale du Viêt-Nam, founded that same year.

The aluminium composition of the production coinage itself was a deliberate choice to prevent hoarding, a persistent problem with the preceding piastre series.