Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Dollar / 1 Piastre - Haïphong
| Issuer | Banque de l'Indo-Chine |
|---|---|
| Year | 1900-1903 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Reverse printed in red-orange, dominated by a large central panel of Chinese characters conveying the note's value and issuing authority, surrounded by an elaborate guilloche border with key-fret (meander) patterning. Two confronted dragon vignettes occupy the upper portion of the design, rendered in fine intaglio, flanking the central text field. Dollar value indicators '$1' appear in each corner, with the anti-counterfeiting penal code warning text printed in French in vertical panels on both the left and right margins. |
| Reverse lettering | $1 $1 BANQUE DE L'INDO-CHINE 東方滙理銀行 銀壹元正 奉本國特諭 L'ARTICLE 139 DU CODE PENAL PUNIT DES TRAVAUX FORCES A PERPE-TUITE CEUX QUI AURONT CONTREFAIT OU FALSIFIE LES BILLETS DE BANQUES AUTORISEES PAR LA LOI, AINSI QUE CEUX QUI AURONT FAIT USAGE DE CES BILLETS CONTREFAITS OU FALSIFIES. $1 $1 DANIEL DUPUIS ET GEORGES DUVAL FEC. |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Banque de l'Indo-Chine was established by French decree in 1875, granted the monopoly of note issue across French Indochina and later extended into French India and the Pacific settlements. This early Haïphong-payable dollar note belongs to a period when the bank maintained regionally designated issues — each major commercial port, Haïphong, Saigon, Hanoi — had its own place of payment printed on the face, reflecting the colony's fragmented financial infrastructure rather than any difference in the underlying instrument.
Dupuis was among the most respected medallists of the Paris Mint in the late nineteenth century; his involvement signals that this issue was treated with the same seriousness as metropolitan currency. Léveillé's engraving work for the Banque de France gives the plates a pedigree unusual for a colonial note of this denomination.