100 Francs

The Banque de l'Indochine 100 Francs of 1945 is one of the more geographically unlikely notes in the French colonial series. With Japanese forces occupying Indochina and metropolitan France unable to supply currency, the Allied-aligned administration turned to Australia. The Note Printing Branch in Melbourne produced the issue — a colonial French bank note rolling off Australian government presses is not a combination that recurs anywhere else in the catalog.

Distribution was complicated by the war's final months and the political chaos that followed Japan's August 1945 surrender. Many of these notes arrived in-territory only as the French were scrambling to reassert control against the Viet Minh.