₫1 — One Dong
The artwork
Front: A young Vietnamese woman in a flat turban and rose-coloured tunic fills the right-hand third, gold earring and beaded necklace picked out against the engraving. Behind the signature panel sits a tiled imperial complex in the Hue manner, gates and roof finials stepping down to a river wall. Blue text above, orange fretwork borders, and UNE PIASTRE in a cartouche along the foot. Engraved by Hourriez after Séb. Laurent.
Back: A bare-chested porter under a conical hat carries a shoulder pole slung with two shallow baskets of melons, water buffalo grazing in the pale ground behind him. The denomination is repeated four ways: Chinese 壹元 with the bank's name in characters down the left edge, GIẤY MỘT ĐỒNG VÀNG in Vietnamese, Khmer numerals and script at centre, and an empty orange-framed panel at right.
In circulation
A Banque de l'Indochine piastre of the pre-war undated type, circulating across Tonkin, Annam, Cochinchina, Cambodia and Laos through the 1930s and 1940s. Superseded after 1951 by the joint issues of the Institut d'Émission des États du Cambodge, du Laos et du Vietnam, and then by separate national currencies.
Details
- IssuerBanque de l'Indochine (東方滙理銀行 on the reverse)
- CurrencyDong (₫)
- DenominationOne Dong
- Collectedon the Vietnam journey, 2009
- SeriesUndated 1 Piastre type; design signed Séb. Laurent fec., engraving Hourriez sc.
- SignatureLe Président and Le Directeur Général Adjoint
- SecurityPrinted Article 139 penal-code warning of hard labour for counterfeiting; serial 245315706 with prefix block Q.9813 and control number 706