500 Đồng

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam issued this note during a period of active armed conflict with French forces — the First Indochina War was at its peak, and the Việt Minh government was operating without fixed territorial control over most urban centers. Printing under those conditions meant no single established facility, and several denominations from this era show inconsistencies in ink saturation and registration that reflect improvised production circumstances.

Pick 57 belongs to a series that was the DRV's primary tool for financing a guerrilla economy — taxation in kind supplemented by paper currency that circulated mainly in liberated zones. French-controlled areas treated these notes as contraband.