50 Ðồng

The Nha Ngân Khố Quốc Gia — the National Treasury, not a central bank in the conventional sense — issued this note during the first year of active French military operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Printing infrastructure was improvised and dispersed across the north, partly to prevent French forces from capturing the entire supply. That origin explains the inconsistency in paper quality and impression sharpness that collectors encounter across surviving examples of this series.

P#11 is among the scarcer denominations from 1947. The war's early disruption of distribution networks meant many notes never reached general circulation at all.