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Pillar of the Community
 Sweden
1518 Posts |
My interest in Indochinese coins began with a 1908 Piastre de commerce from French Indochina. It was an interesting complement to the silver crowns from France itself I had in my collection. I always want to research my coins: In which context were they issued, what was the need for the type, why do they look the way they do, how were they used, what was their value? Doing so for the piastre de commerce led to learning about the history of Indochina - political, colonial, societal, and monetary. Soon I came across other coins, and my collection grew to include both cash coins and banknotes. And my research continued, but with my bad memory, I need to write things down. And if I write things down, why not share my findings with others who might be interested? So here it is: The story about the Piastre de commerce, or Indochinese piastre. I will present my collection of piastres and their fractions in a number of posts, broadly in chronological order, with my findings for each object. In parallel, I present my collection of Indochinese small-change (cash coins and the likes) in a separate thread entitled The Cents And Sapèques of French Indochina. The reason for having two threads is that the silver piastres and the copper small-change in many ways represent two separate economies, with different usage (and users). I elaborate a bit more on that in the small-change thread. Some posts are lenghty. It is completely ok to skip the text and just look at the coins, if you like  . I have made an effort to dig out contemporary photos from Indochina, to convey some atmosphere from that lost world (with no intention to be nostalgic; history has been rough with Indochina). All the coins and banknotes shown are from my collection. In case I want to refer to an object not in my possession, I provide a link. And, although this is not intended as a "Post Your ..." thread, I do welcome contributions from anyone who has Indochinese piastres to show - be they of silver, copper-nickel, or paper. I am a bit curious as to how many more people have French Indochina as a collection theme. I hope you enjoy reading this thread. I do, writing it. Post #1:The Rise of the Piastre
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The Struggle for Colonial PowerPiastre de commerce, French Indochina, 1887. Silver 0.900, 27.17 g, 39 mm.   The Indochinese piastre existed from 1879 to 1954. It was introduced by the French after they had established their colonial presence in Indochina in 1862. It ceased to be used when the colonial rule ended in 1954 and the states of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were established. After that followed turbulent years, but those I will leave aside. Here I will tell the story of the piastre: How and why it was introduced, how it changed and how it was used over the years, how its different shapes reflected the economical development - from the 27 grams of good silver that successfully competed with the peso and Trade dollar, to a devaluated piece of copper-nickel and fiduciary bank notes. France and its coloniesSome background first. France had colonial ambitions early on, with Canada in the 16th century and Louisiana and Indian possessions in the 17th. In Asia they competed foremostly with the British and the Dutch. Especially the British were a thorn in the side with their Indian and Chinese advancements, but after the final defeat in the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, France did not have the strength to pursue any colonial expansion further away than Algeria across the Mediterranean. The ambition was there though, and the French cast their eyes on China - but so did the Brits, and more successfully so, with the establishment of Hong Kong as a British colony in 1841. France then turned their focus to Indochina, where they had trading and missionary outposts since the 18th century and even had been involved in helping the ruling Nguyen dynasty to power a few decades earlier. Under Napoleon III, who had made himself emperor of France in 1852, French expansionism got new fuel. Towards the end of the decade naval operations were launched to subdue the Indochinese countries. That resulted in Cochinchina (the southernmost part of Vietnam) coming under French rule as a colony in 1862 and Cambodia becoming a French protectorate in 1863. Thus began the French colonial rule that would last for nearly a century. With the colonial foothold firmly in place in what was called French Cochinchina, expansion could proceed stepwise. Not without resistance, but the French were decisive and in 1887 French Indochina was formed out of Cochinchina, the rest of Vietnam, and Cambodia (Laos was successively annexed in the years that followed). The official name was The Indochinese Union but that was rarely used, not even on coins. Of the five constituent countries (see the map) Cambodia, Laos, and Annam (see Note 1) remained monarchies, but as French protectorates and under French control. Cochinchina stayed under direct French rule as a colony and Tonkin had a special protectorate status, also under direct French rule. The French colonial rule initially had Saigon as its capital, but it was moved to Hanoi in 1902. The Vietnamese imperial court resided in Hue, well away from both those cities.  French Indochina.Source: Wikimedia Commons (with some locations added) under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licenseYes, yes - what about the money?Now let's leave it at that with geography and politics and instead look at the monetary question! For trade and larger transactions the Mexican Peso and Spanish Dollar were the predominant means in Indochina for most of the 19th century. The US Trade Dollar also penetrated the Indochinese market in the 1870s. There was however a constant lack of specie, due to the increased commercial activity brought on by the presence of the French traders and entrepreneurs. France brought modern conveniences like railways to Cochinchina - see photo below (and Note 2) - but also unbridledly exploited the natural resources available: rice, sugar, tea, coffee, coal, etc. All that required an increasing supply of money, and money was to a large degree specie. A French civil servant complained that "any pesos or Trade dollars available will soon fall into the hands of Chinese merchants and into their melting pots". A slight exaggeration, of course, much silver did go to China, but a lot was also put back into circulation (sometimes countermarked).  Inauguration of the Saigon-Cholon steam tramway line, built by the French, in 1881.Source: Historic Viêt Nam, Tim Doling's heritage portalAnyhow, France saw a need to gain control of the money supply in their colony. From 1863 French currency was made legal tender in French Cochinchina. France thought that their 5 francs coin would be an acceptable substitute for the peso - it was a silver piece of almost but not quite the same size. Eventually they realized that no one else shared that view. France needed their own " Trade dollar" (there could  have been an element of national pride involved, why should France be a lesser player than Mexico or the United States in the matter of international trade?). Work on such a trade coin began in 1878 (more about the design work in a future post) and resulted in the design of a piastre de commerce for French Cochinchina. Due to the falling silver prices it did not go beyond a pattern, only a limited issue of fractions (10, 20 and 50 c with the same design) were issued in 1879, for Cochinchina. The full-blown piastre was struck from 1885, then for French Indochina (two years before the formal foundation of the colony!). That is the coin I show at the top of this post. The Indochinese piastre - Piastre de commerceThe piastre de commerce weighed 27.215 g and its fineness was 0.900 silver - all clearly stated on the reverse, which was important for a new type of coin that was to be introduced on a very discerning market. This was very close to the silver content of a Mexican Peso and identical to the weight and fineness of the US Trade dollar. One piastre was divided into 100 centièmes (not centimes, although the meaning of the word is the same: 1/100th), later also commonly named cents. As for French Cochinchina, fractional coins with the same design were minted for French Indochina, with the denominations 10, 20 and 50 c. The 'A' under the denomination on the reverse is the mintmark for Paris. Coins for French Cochinchina and later French Indochina were generally minted in France, by Monnaie de Paris, the mint responsible for French coins. The piastre de commerce was the first Indochinese piastre (see Note 3) and it was a success. The Vietnamese nicknamed it bac dâm xoè, "silver dress", or bac dâu hình, "silver head" (see Note 4). It continued to be minted with the same design until 1928 (the 10 c and 20 c coins until 1937 and the 50 c as a non-silver issue in 1946). More about that in coming posts! The 1887 Piastre de commerce and the imperial silverThe mintage for the 1887 piastre was about 3,076,000. That required about 75 metric tons of silver. Of those 75 tons, nearly 15 tons were silver ingots captured by French troops from the Imperial Palace in Hue in 1885. The emperor at that time - Hàm Nghi - fought the French but had fled the palace, bringing most of what is believed to have been a huge treasure of gold and silver with him. Quite a bit of gold and silver, both coins and ingots, remained though, most of which was eventually shipped to France. The ingots were refined and the silver was used to mint part of the 1887 issue of the piastre de commerce. The gold ingots ended up in the 1887 issue of the French 20 francs coin. (About the coins in the treasure, see Note 5.) So, there is about 20 % chance that my 1887 piastre shown above is made of French war booty, silver from the Vietnamese imperial treasury.  The main gate of the Imperial Palace in Hue (in 1919).Source: manhhai/flickr, public domainNext timeMy next post will look back a bit, at the time before the introduction of the piastre and what other trade coins that were around in Indochina at the time. NotesNote 1: Annam was the name used by China and some Western countries. It means "Pacified South" and was the name given by the Chinese during their rule over Vietnam in the 1st millenium AD. It was not used or liked by the Vietnamese. Their name for this central part of the former Vietnamese empire Dai Nam was Trung Ky. Tonkin, which was separated from Annam by the French basically to split the nationalist movements, was called Bac Ky in Vietnamese. Note 2: Since my other great interest is trains and railways, I may slip in a picture or two of that, when I can find an excuse. Note 3: There was another pattern piastre for the French protectorate of Cambodia at about the same time. It looked completely different (can be seen here) and was probably only used as a presentation piece by the Cambodian king. (1860 on the coin in the link is the year of the king's accession, not of the minting, which was sometime 1864-75.) Note 4: Vietnamese words use many diacritics that do not show correctly here. Therefor Vietnamese words are presented in a simplified form. Note 5: The coins were mostly Vietnamese early 19th century gold and silver issues of various types: circulation issues as well as presentation pieces, medals, and jetons. They got caught in an administrative tug-of-war between the Ministry of Finance and the Bibliothèque nationale (which keeps the "national" coin collection), which wasn't resolved for decades. The coins eventually ended up at the Museum of the Monnaie de Paris (Paris mint), administered by the Ministry of Finance. LITERATUREThe standard catalog for French Indochinese coins is Monnaies et Jetons de l'Indochine Française by Jean Lecompte. A very good and informative alternative in English, which also covers banknotes and various other financial instruments, is French Southeast Asia Coins & Currency by Howard A Daniel III. Probably the most extensive account of the monetary history of French Indochina, from the earliest almost pre-historic records up until the beginning of the 20th century, is the 650 page non-illustrated volume Annam - Études numismatiques by Albert Schroeder, published 1905. The (German!) author masters the Chinese and Vietnamese languages which allows him to decipher the ancient cash coins as well as make use of Vietnamese sources. Edited by erafjel
05/04/2023 3:50 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2703 Posts |
Interesting read. I look forward to your next installment.
I found it fascinating that the French looted the imperial treasury and used it to make coins for commerce. Almost like Robin Hood - but with obvious capitalistic intent.
"Nummi rari mira sunt, si sumptus ferre potes." - Christophorus filius Scotiae
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Valued Member
United States
125 Posts |
Great stuff - I have a few random pieces and will have to go dig them out to review. Looking forward to more!
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Moderator
 United States
128395 Posts |
Very interesting!  |
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Pillar of the Community
Topic StarterSweden
1518 Posts |
Quote:
I found it fascinating that the French looted the imperial treasury and used it to make coins for commerce. All in line with the view that everything in the colony was there to be exploited by the colonizers. Still, making coins for Indochina was perhaps seen as a way to pay back some of the loot? Quote:
I have a few random pieces and will have to go dig them out to review. Please do!
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Pillar of the Community
Topic StarterSweden
1518 Posts |
Post #2:The Predecessors
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How To Package 24.5 Grams Of Silver And Make It Look Nice"Piastre de commerce" means trade piastre, or trade dollar if you like. It was from start intended as a trade coin, so we shall look a bit at the competition at the time of its introduction. Today's post thus focuses on the trade coins that were in use in Indochina at the time of the arrival of the French and soon after, that is, ca 1860-1900. Trade coins have been around for almost as long as coins themselves. Among the most successful and long-lived are the Spanish 8 Reales and the Maria Theresa Thaler, both of which (but by far mostly the former) were used in the Far East. Other examples are the modern Mexican 8 Reales, the US and British Trade Dollars, and the Japanese Yen. These all fall into the "silver crown" category, that is, coins of good silver (at least 0.833 fine), about 27 g weight and about 40 mm wide. Plus, they have managed to maintain their silver content over the years. Plus, I would say, they all look fairly good, with a design containing details that have been hard to falsify in a manner that fools experienced tradesmen. The packaging of that good silver is not without importance for its success. Let us look closer at some of these trade coins. The Three Big Ones8 reales, "Mexican dollar/peso", 1877. Silver 0.903, 26.9 g, 39 mm.  The "Mexican Peso" or "Mexican Dollar" was the prevalent trade coin in Indochina at the time of the arrival of the French, around 1860. It had taken that position from the no longer minted "Spanish Dollar" and maintained it for the rest of the century (although the "Spanish Dollar" continued to be used also after its minting had ceased). It was an 8 reales coin, minted 1824-97, weighed 27.07 g and was 0.903 fine (see Note 1). Called piastre mexicaine in French and in Vietnamese nicknamed bac hoa xoè, "silver flower", because of the sun and its rays, or diêu ngân, "silver bird". 8 reales, "Spanish dollar" with chop marks, 1808 (Bolivia). Silver 0.896, 26.6 g, 39 mm.   The "Spanish Dollar", or 8 reales coin - also named "piece of eight" - had been minted since the 16th century until the 1820s. Minted in huge quantities from the extremely rich silver finds in Latin America, at local mints in Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, etc, it became the unrivaled trade coin for centuries. With few exceptions it basically maintained its weight and fineness throughout and became a trusted institution and the preferred medium of foreign exchange for the silver loving Chinese and others. The classical two pillar "PLUS ULTRA" design was used for coins minted in Spanish possessions only, not in Spain itself. A trusted design as it was, it of course drew the attention of forgers. The Chinese, always meticulous about quality and genuinity, employed chop marking as a means to indicate genuinity of a specimen. Bankers and money changers, "schroffs", punched the coin with a mark of their choice, after having established its genuinity. Chop marks could of course be forged too, so the procedure had to be repeated at each schroff's desk. After many years of circulation - and a Spanish dollar could circulate for more than a century - coins could become so covered with chop marks that they were hardly recognizable. Chop marked coins (literally called chopped dollars also by the French) were initially, in 1863, assigned status as legal tender by the French authorities in Cochinchina, just like unmarked coins ( clean dollars, also here the English term was used by the French). That was immediately exploited by Chinese and local traders, who purchased chopped dollars in Hong Kong, where they were discounted due to usually having some loss of weight. Those were brought to Saigon, where they could be exchanged to clean dollars, which were valued at full price in the Hong Kong and other markets. Later the same year, importation of chopped dollars was forbidden and they were no longer legal tender; instead they were treated as a commodity and paid by weight. Trade Dollar, USA, 1877. Silver 0.900, 27.21 g, 38 mm.   The US Trade Dollar, minted 1873-85, became popular in the Far East, not least in Indochina. It helped fill the need for dollars/pesos/piastres, of which there was a constant shortage. It was nicknamed bac ông lão, "old man's silver", since in the eyes of the Vietnamese, Lady Liberty looked more like an old man sitting crouched on that pile of whatever it is ... In the view of the French authorities and the Far East merchants and traders, the Spanish and Mexican pesos, as well as the US Trade dollar, were equivalent and interchangeable. They were all well-known and trustworthy pieces of good silver (although the Chinese liked to chop mark them all to make sure). All three were legal tender in French Cochinchina/Indochina until 1906. Other Important "Dollars"Maria Theresa Thaler, minted in Venice 1817-33. Silver 0.833, 28.1 g, 40 mm.  The Austrian Maria Theresa Thaler, minted mainly as a trade coin in vast numbers since 1780, the year of empress Maria Theresa's decease, was used extensively in the Near East and Northern Africa. It weighs 28.07 g, is 0.833 fine so containing 23.39 g silver. The demand was high - it had a well defined and very stable value, and it has an attractive design, so it became very popular - and it was minted at several places, eventually also outside of Austria. It also reached India, China, and the Far East including Indochina, but in lesser numbers than the Spanish dollar. The Hong Kong Dollar contained slightly less silver than the Mexican dollar (24.26 g vs 24.44 g). It never became popular and was minted only 1866-68 (perhaps the Chinese didn't feel comfortable with a coin featuring the British ruler, apart from its lower silver content?). During that time it did appear in Indochina though. The Japanese Trade Dollar was minted 1875-77 in moderate volumes. It was inspired by and had the same specifications as the US Trade dollar. It did not differ much from the ordinary silver Yen. The Trade dollar found its way to Indochina, and the yen - which was minted in great numbers - even more so. In contrast to the Mexican and Spanish Dollars and the US Trade dollar, the Japanese "dollars" did not obtain legal tender status (the Saigon Chamber of Commerce, advising the French administration on the matter, advised against this based on ill-founded assumptions about the Japanese coins being of questionable quality). Other silver crowns also found their way to the Far East and were used to some extent. Examples are the Dutch rijksdaalder and the US domestic dollar. Some That Didn't Quite Make ItThe Vietnamese emperor Minh Mang (see Note 2) began minting "phi long" - "flying dragon" - coins in 1834. They were silver coins sized as Spanish pesos (weighing a little more than 27 g) but with inferior silver content - 60-70 %, or lower, and varying between issues - it was never a serious competitor to the existing well known trade coins. (The name phi long refers to the design, not the denomination. There were also phi long coins of smaller denominations as well as gold phi longs.) The Vietnamese "war indemnity coin" of 1865 also deserves mention. The Saigon "Peace and Friendship" treaty of 1862 ended several years of French military operations and ceded to France the part of South Vietnam that became French Cochinchina. It also stipulated that Vietnam should pay to France and Spain (who had participated on the French side) no less than 4 million piastres (that is, Mexican pesos) to compensate the French and Spanish for the damages they had suffered (!). The Vietnamese court decided to mint a new silver coin for the purpose, in line with the previous, by then ancient, phi longs. It had about the same weight as a Mexican peso (27.2 g), indicated on the coin as 7 tiên 2 phân (yes, that is the same as the 7 mace 2 candareens seen on Chinese Dragon Dollars). However, the fineness was only 80 %, which led to the French refusing to accept it. The minting was thus halted early on, but it is unknown how many were minted, and if and how they were used instead. It looks like this, with a price tag in accordance with its rarity. I have already mentioned the Cambodian piastre, minted by France sometime 1864-75 (1860 on the coin in the link being the year of the king's accession), and probably only used as a presentation piece by the Cambodian king. Although sort of an experiment by the French to mint a peso coin, it wasn't seriously aimed at taking the place of the Mexican peso. The 5 francs coins with the French emperor on them - see below - had failed to do that, coins with the Cambodian king would hardly be any more successful. Some SuccessorsThe iconic Chinese Dragon Dollar was not introduced until 1889 and the British Trade Dollar not until 1895, so they are successors, not predecessors (although neither can be claimed to have been inspired by the Indochinese piastre). Both were used extensively in Indochina once they were available. The French ConnectionFinally, a coin that certainly was of importance in French Indochina although it didn't quite qualify as a piastre, containing only 22.5 g silver. 5 francs, France, 1868. Silver 0.900, 25.0 g, 37 mm.  Soon after their arrival, the French experienced a lack of specie. The supply of Mexican and other piastres simply did not suffice for the needs of the increased trade and economic activity. In 1863 (shortly after the back-and-forth legislation concerning chopped and clean dollars), French coins were made legal tender in Cochinchina. That was also a rather natural measure, since all colonial budgets and transactions were conducted in francs (and continued to be so for decades). Also, France saw no reason why the 5 francs coin could not be accepted as a trade coin - after all, it was made of good silver, almost as heavy as a piastre, featured the impressive French emperor ... what more could one wish for? At this time France, now fully recovered after the troublesome decades following Napoleon's defeat, had high ambitions in every field, including the monetary system. In 1865 the Latin Monetary Union was formed, with several European countries aligning their currencies to the French franc; in 1867, at the International Monetary Conference in Paris, France proposed to make the franc into a world currency (that didn't happen, as we know). Anyway, the 5 francs coin was a good 0.900 silver piece of 25 g and it was certainly useful when piastres were lacking. It was initially tariffed at 0.90 piastres, despite its silver content being worth 0.92 piastres. That of course provided yet another opportunity for resourceful businessmen to make a profit by arbitraging. Despite being light weight in comparison to true piastres, the 5 francs coin contained good silver and was also accepted by local and Chinese merchants, as testified by examples with chop marks. It was not only the 5 francs coin that was brought in from France. All denominations down to the bronze centime coins (see Note 3) were made legal tender, and were employed to try to rectify the chronic shortage of small change. It was a regular habit to to split piastres into halves, quarts, and eights to obtain change. That custom was not liked by the authorities, not least because it was tempting for some to split a piastre into ten "eights". Next timeNow we know what the piastre had to compete with. Next, we shall look at why the piastre came to look the way it did. NotesNote 1: In 1866-73 Mexico struck silver coins with the denomination 1 peso instead of 8 reales. That was not liked by Chinese and other Far East merchants, so Mexico reverted to the 8 reales denomination for silver (and instead struck 1 peso gold coins). Note 2: Vietnam was named Dai Nam from 1832 until 1945 (although the French called the major part of it Annam). Note 3: As I (will) describe in my parallel thread on the small change of French Indochina, French coins in general, and the French small change in particular, was treated with dislike by the locals, despite them filling an actual need.
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Pillar of the Community
Topic StarterSweden
1518 Posts |
Post #3:The Design Of The Piastre
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Who's That Girl?50 centièmes, French Cochinchina, 1879. Silver 0.900, 13.66 g, 29 mm.   The first Indochinese piastres put into circulation were fractions of the piastre de commerce (10, 20 and 50 centièmes) and they were issued for French Cochinchina in 1879. The colony French Indochina was established a few years later and French Cochinchina then became part of that colony. The design however, was identical. Like for the full piastre issued from 1885, the fractional coins clearly stated exact weight and fineness (0.900 silver like the full piastre). So where did the design come from? It is interesting to compare with the contemporary US Trade Dollar, shown below. The similarity is obvious. The Trade dollar came 1873, quite a few years before the piastre de commerce. Were the French inspired by the Trade dollar design - did they perhaps copy it? Yes and no. The French were of course well aware of the American Trade dollar - it circulated together with the Mexican Peso in Indochina and one reason for the introduction of the piastre was to replace those with their own trade coin. No doubt did they study it carefully, and the piastre's weight and fineness ended up identical to that of the Trade dollar (both have 0.900 fineness and a nominal weight of 27.215 gram/420 grains but the piastre is slightly wider and thinner). That the obverse of the piastre looked familiar to users of the Trade dollar couldn't be wrong, when trying to introduce it as a new trade coin. Trade Dollar, USA, 1877. Silver 0.900, 27.21 g, 38 mm. But where does the lady and her stuff on the French piastre come from? It is not the same girl as on the US Trade dollar, after all. The American Liberty wears a tiara and holds an olive branch, she looks quite relaxed where she sits. The French version has a spiked crown, holds a fasces and looks rather stern. In fact, she looks more like - Statue of Liberty, right? That is not a coincidence. It was in 1878 that Albert Barre was commissioned for the design of the new French trade coin, the piastre de commerce. It was also in 1878 that work on the Statue of Liberty had progressed far enough to show the statue's head at the Paris International Exhibition that year:  Statue of Liberty head in Paris in 1878.Source: Library of Congress Online CatalogSo, did Albert copy the work of his contemporary Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who was working on the Statue of Liberty? No, he didn't. It was actually kind of the other way around. Both Barre and Bartholdi used the same model for their work: The Great Seal of France, which was designed by Albert's father, Jacques-Jean Barre, in 1848, the first year of the second French republic. It is shown below and it looks very similar to the piastre. French Lady Liberty is the same, no doubt. On the Seal she is the personification of the Republic, on the piastre she would be seen as the personification of France (rather than Liberty, at least by the Indochinese). The fasces represents justice but also the power to exercise jurisdiction. The seven rays on her crown have been ascribed to various interpretations, a common one is that they symbolize the seven seas and the seven continents (which is a great interpretation for a trade coin). The seven rays are actually a symbol that goes back to antiquity, holding various religious or mystical meanings over time, often associated with the sun or enlightenment of some kind. In the Great Seal they might simply represent the enlightenment brought by freedom. The rudder held by Liberty symbolizes that the people/republic is in control and steers their own destiny.  Great Seal of France.Source: Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licenseThere are also a few details that differ. An anchor has been added, why? Well, a marine symbol is not wrong for a trade coin, but in this case it is also because the French colonies were administered by the (joint) Ministry of the Navy and the Colonies. The wheat straws at Liberty's feet have been replaced with rice, the so important produce of Indochina. The Gallic Rooster, symbol of vigilance, is gone and so is the urn, the symbol of universal suffrage. Neither was apparently considered appropriate for the Indochinese users. Albert Barre died unexpectedly in December 1878, before having finished the design. Luckily his brother Auguste Barre was also a medalist, and he completed his brother's work in 1879. The engraver's signature on the coin is just "BARRE", and both brothers must be given credit for the work. Next timeIn my next post, I will step forward in time to 1895, to the first alteration of the piastre de commerce.
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Pillar of the Community
Topic StarterSweden
1518 Posts |
Post #4:The First Devaluation
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Trying To Avoid The Melting PotPiastre de commerce, French Indochina, 1908. Silver 0.900, 27.0 g, 39 mm.  In 1895, the British launched their Trade Dollar (looked like this). It had the same specifications as the Japanese Yen, which had same fineness as the piastre, 0.900 silver, but weighed slightly less, 26.96 g compared to the piastre's 27.215 g. The piastre had the same nominal value as the yen and British Trade dollar (the US Trade dollar was no longer minted by this time) and the small difference in weight was enough to draw the piastre away from the markets and into the melting pots to profit from the extra silver. The yen had been around for quite a while, but the introduction of yet a competitor in the British Trade dollar made the French take the decision to adjust the weight of the piastre to be (nearly) the same as for the competitor coins. Therefor the weight of the piastre was lowered to 27 g in 1895 (the new weight is shown on my coin above; it is the only difference compared to the original design). This lasted until the last piastres with this design were minted in 1928. 20 centièmes, French Indochina, 1899. Silver 0.835, 5.4 g, 26 mm.  The fractions 10, 20 and 50 centièmes were made accordingly lighter in 1895. In 1898 the 10 c and 20 c were in addition reduced to 0.835 fineness (but keeping the weight) for the same reason, to better match the corresponding Japanese 20 sen and Hong Kong 20 c denominations.  Construction work on the Haiphong-Yunnanfou railway.Source: belleindochine.free.frDespite these efforts, the outflow of piastres continued. In January 1905, the Governor of Indochina imposed a ban on export of piastres (see Note 1). The neighboring Chinese province of Yunnan was exempted, however, due to the need to finance the on-going work on the railway connecting Haiphong and the Yunnan city of Yunnanfou (modern name Kunming). In 1906, it was estimated that the flow of piastres to Yunnan reached 500,000 pieces a month! Even though there was now no extra silver to extract from the piastres, they were still good silver, and in Yunnan and many other Chinese provinces it was customary and preferred to use silver ingots in the form of sycees (see Note 2) for payments of any significance. So piastres, and any other silver coins for that matter, that reached Yunnan bankers were customarily melted and formed into sycees.  Traditional Chinese silver sycee.Source: sedwickcoins.comNext timeMy next post will look at what a banknote from this time looked like. We shall also explore how much things cost and how much you might earn in Indochina some 110 years ago. NotesNote 1: Banning the export of a trade coin may seem counterproductive, but the background was that the demand for silver had increased dramatically during to the Russo-Japanese war 1904-1905. Piastres became so scarce in Indochina that local trade was severely hampered. Note 2: Sycees were a sort of standardized ingots of gold or silver which came in different sizes and different shapes (such as that of a boat or a saddle). Made by local gold- and silversmiths, they had been used for more than 2,000 years in China as a means of payment and were still in use in the 1930s.
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Pillar of the Community
Topic StarterSweden
1518 Posts |
Post #5:Early Banknotes
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How To Spend A Day In Saigon In 19131 piastre, French Indochina, 1909-21. 140 x 105 mm.   There were of course not only coins, banknotes were issued already in 1876 by Banque de l'Indo-Chine (see Note 1). Banque de l'Indo-Chine was a private bank owned by French private banks and it had monopoly on issuing banknotes and French colonial coins in French Indochina (see Note 2). The banknotes and coins were made in France by the regular issuers of French banknotes and coins, Banque de France and Monnaie de Paris, respectively. The first banknotes had denominations of 5 and 20 piastres - fairly large sums - but from 1892, 1 piastre banknotes were also issued. At that time, 1 piastre was about 4 francs; the lowest denomination French banknote was 5 francs. A possible explanation for issuing this low denomination was the steady outflow of specie to China (as mentioned in my previous post). Issuing 1 piastre banknotes was perhaps a measure to alleviate the precarious situation of the silver piastres that flowed to Yunnan's melting pots and instead keep the piastres for local use. It might also have been a measure to expand the customer stock among the local Vietnamese merchants (see Note 3), for whom low denominations were as useful as higher denominations - a measure that was not too successful in that case, the locals had a strong preference for specie and had low trust in the French paper money. Still, they were used (these notes often come folded twice like the one here, indicating they were carried along with coins; it is not too big with it s 14 x 10.5 cm/5.5" x 4"). The 1 piastre banknoteLet's look a bit closer at this paper piastre then! It has the expected text: One Piastre, payable in specie to bearer (Note 4). References to a number of decrees from 1875 to 1901, dealing with the rights of the bank to issue banknotes. The emission of these 1 piastre banknotes was authorized August 3, 1891. There is no date of emission or printing (which is according to French custom). This type (or very similar ones) were issued 1891-1921. The date of issue for this specific banknote can be limited to 1909-1921 based on the signatures. The banknote is stamped SAIGON (by hand), indicating which branch office of the bank that issued the note. Saigon was the location of the main office of Banque de l'Indo-Chine, but there were a number of branch offices across Indochina (for instance in Hanoi, Haiphong, and Phnom-Penh). The reverse has text in French, stating that counterfeiting or using counterfeit banknotes is punished with lifetime forced labor (a standard text for French banknotes). The Chinese text (turning the note 90 degrees clockwise) is read vertically, from right to left: Bank of Indochina; Exactly One Silver Piastre; By special order for this country (see Note 5). Back to the obverse. The illustration shows two personifications, one of the Republic, or France, and one of Indochina. It is not hard to tell which is which, neither is it hard to tell who is the boss of the two. Lady France wears an olive crown and holds a caduceus, a symbol for trade, in one hand, the other arm is extended in a protective gesture. Lady Indochina holds a bamboo staff, a symbol for Vietnam or Vietnamese vitality (I think, see also Note 6). That the image well represents France's view of itself as a good-hearted protector and civilizer of a people in need of that, is quite clear. I wonder how the Vietnamese perceived the image? The value of moneyHow much was a piastre then? The official exchange rate to the French franc was around 4.50 francs per piastre in 1885. The rate was not fixed, since the franc was on a gold standard and the piastre on a silver standard. Originally, when France began its colonial adventure in 1862, the franc to Mexican peso (the piastre did not yet exist) exchange rate was 5.55, but with silver prices falling, so did the value of the peso and later the piastre in terms of francs. The decline continued throughout the rest of the 19th century and in 1902 the piastre touched bottom at 1.95 francs. It then remained around 2.50 francs until World War 1. After the war the rate tumbled up and down and peaked at more than 27 francs in 1926. In 1931 the rate was fixed at 10 francs, more about that in a later post. A quick look at salaries and cost of living may give a better idea of the worth of a piastre. Data is scarce, but around 1900 an ordinary colonial official could make perhaps 3-5 piastres a day, while a low-paid day laborer (a so called "coolie") had to settle for ½ piastre a day. 1 piastre would buy you 10-20 kg of rice. A trip to SaigonTo have an even better idea of the worth of the piastre, we can pretend we somehow end up as visitors in Saigon, in the year 1913. A bit lost we are, but fortunately we got Claudius Madrolle's excellent travel guide, "Towards Angkor. Saigon. Phnom Penh", so we know how much we should expect to pay for different services. And what to go see.  Source: WorthPointSaigon at this time has about 60,000 inhabitants, 8,500 of whom are French. Greater Saigon with Cholon and other suburbs counts 240,000 inhabitants. A good start is to find a hotel, since we will stay over night. We choose the middle class Hôtel des Nations at Boulevard Bonard, which offers single rooms and meals for 5 piastres. It's time for lunch, and since we plan to dine at our hotel, we choose another restaurant for lunch. Trying one of the many Chinese restaurants would be one option, but we go for the French restaurant Café Restaurant du Continental. Lunch with wine costs us 2.50 piastres. In retrospect a Chinese restaurant might have been a better choice, much of the French dishes have to be made from canned ingredients here in the Far East, far from the homeland.  Saigon 1913.Source: gallica.bnf.fr/Société de Géographie, public domainTo compensate for our bad choice of lunch place, we decide to go to the "Chinese" suburb of Cholon, where many of the Chinese (mostly Cantonese) immigrants live. The markets there are supposed to be lively and worth seeing. To get a view of the surroundings, we choose to go by pousse-pousse, as rickshaws are called here. It is about 5 km/3 mi to Cholon, the trip costs 40 cents (0.40 piastres). Having arrived, we attempt to pay with a 1 piastre banknote, expecting some coins in exchange, thinking the poor and now sweaty guy who has pulled us all the way would prefer to carry light-weight paper money over weighty silver. But no, he just shakes his head and says "Monnaies sonnantes, monsieur, monnaies sonnantes", so we give him some "sounding money" instead.  Our pousse-pousse.Source: manhhai/flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licenseOut of the pousse-pousse, pain in various places makes us realize it would have been a good idea to pay the extra 10 cents for a vehicle with rubber tyres, on those gravel roads ... Anyhow, the Chinese markets and stores are marvellous, and we buy a number of souvenires - all too expensive, surely. Nowhere is our paper money accepted, we have to use silver everywhere.  Cholon market.Source: manhhai/flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic licenseTime to go back to Saigon! Those bumpy gravel roads still hurt in our back, or somewhere around there, so we decide to take the tramway. It's a steam tramway, so a sight in itself. And the ticket is just 5 cents. A relief for both back and wallet!  The Cholon-Saigon steam tramway.Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domainBack in Saigon, dinner at our hotel and then out again. We are looking forward to a night at the opera: The Saigon Municipal Theatre gives La Fille du Regiment (The Daughter of the Regiment), a comic opera by a visiting French ensemble. It is a French theatre and tickets are tariffed in French francs: 4 francs for a seat in the middle stalls, which is 1.60 piastres. And finally we get rid of our 1 piastre banknote, here it is accepted! Next time1913 was just one year before World War 1. My next post looks at the aftermath of the war and its eventual effect on the piastre. NotesNote 1: Before the introduction of the Indochinese piastre in 1879, the bank exchanged Mexican pesos for banknotes. The Mexican peso was legal tender in French Indochina until 1906. Note 2: As discussed in my parallel thread on the smaller denominations, there were local issues of the smallest coin denominations, besides those issued by France/Banque de l'Indo-Chine. Note 3: Despite Banque de l'Indo-Chine being a "local" bank, it was not until 1886 that the Vietnamese themselves were allowed to open accounts. Before that the bank was reserved for the French colonists. Note 4: Why the duplicated text? The only reason I can see is that the first issues in the 19th century had text in French and English. At some point it was decided that French only would do, but the layout was kept ... Note 5: The sequence of Chinese characters in the rightmost column (when turned 90 degrees clockwise) have a direct translation which is quite different from "Bank of Indochina". Without the help of my dear Chinese friend here, I would be lost in translation! Note 6: There are other suggestions for what she is holding: a sugar cane, an opium pipe ... to me, it looks more like bamboo.
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Post #6:Going To San Francisco
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The Roaring TwentiesA post-war boomNo battles were fought in Indochina during World War 1, but tens of thousands of Vietnamese were recruited to the French army and shipped to the battlefields in Europe. Those who returned came to a country still in a firm grip of the colonial power France. Of the 20 million inhabitants, a little more than 0.1 % were French. The demand for rice, the prime produce of Indochina, rose after the war, as did the price. The demand for rubber boomed. This lead to an economic expansion in Indochina, with increased agricultural production, establishment of rubber plantations, mining of tin, zinc, and lead, and continued small scale industrialization in areas such as textiles and alcohol. During the 1920s, French Indochina maintained a position as 2nd-3rd largest exporter of rice in the world. It was, however, an economic growth that mostly benefited "la Métropole", that is, France. Imports too to a great extent benefited France, consisting of goods like machinery and wine, of course.  At the rubber plantation.Source: belleindochine.free.frThe growing economic activity, paired with a fairly large export and import, kept the demand for piastres high. At the same time, in the aftermath of the war, finances all over the world tried to regain stability - the gold standard had been suspended, currencies depreciated. That also spilled over to Indochina. The French expression for The Roaring Twenties, Les Années Folles, "The Crazy Years", quite well describes the time from the piastre's point of view.  Hanoi in the 1920s.Source: manhhai/flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic licenseYo-yoing exchange rates and silver content10 centièmes, French Indochina, 1920, minted in San Francisco. Silver 0.400, 3.0 g, 19 mm.  To begin with, the Indochinese piastre was on a silver standard and minted in good silver, 0.900 for the full piastre and 0.835 for the fractions 10 c and 20 c (the 50 c ceased being minted regularly in 1896, but we will come back to that denomination in a later post). From 1900 to 1915 the international silver price had been stable around US$ 0.55/oz, but then it started rising and in 1919 it was at US$ 1.13. That made it costly to mint silver coins, and for the piastre and fractions, minting was halted or greatly reduced during the later war years. The resulting shortage of coins led to issuing of fractional banknotes with denominations as low as 10 c, but Monnaie de Paris (the Paris Mint, which was responsible for minting of Indochinese coins) also took the step to commission minting of severely debased 10 c and 20 c coins to the San Francisco mint. The mint in San Francisco had the capacity to produce large quantities of coins quickly, and it was also cost efficient to ship the coins from there to Indochina. The coins were 0.400 silver, so strictly speaking billon. It is worth noting that in contrast to what had always been the case, the fineness was not stated on these coins. The San Francisco coins were slightly heavier and thicker than the Paris minted coins. In 1921, silver prices were down to almost pre-war level, so minting in better silver was resumed. Not quite as good as before though, the 10 c and 20 c coins were down to 0.680 silver (again stated on the coins). And minting was back in Paris. 10 centièmes, French Indochina, 1923. Silver 0.680, 2.73 g, 19 mm.  The silver standard Indochinese piastre did not have a fixed exchange rate to the (in principle) gold standard franc. The franc/piastre rate had a great impact on the rich exports and imports to and from the homeland, France. And the franc had its own problems. During the war, more francs than ever were emitted to cover the war expenses, and war bonds exceeded the state budget many times over. The pressured franc lost 70 % of its value compared to the US dollar from 1914 to 1920, inflation was rampant. The franc kept losing value and in July 1926 it had lost another 60 % towards the dollar - from around 5 francs/US$ in 1914, it was now at 40 francs/US$. It recovered a bit and in 1927 the exchange was rather stable around 25 francs/US$. With both the silver price and franc exchange rate fluctuating, each for their own reasons, the price of the piastre tumbled in what seemed an uncontrollable way throughout most of the decade. From being rated at about 2.50 francs at the beginning of the war, it rose and reached 16.50 francs in 1920. It then rapidly fell to 6.75 francs in 1921, kept fluctuating, peaked at 27.50 francs in 1926 and then followed the falling silver price down to around 11 francs in 1928. In 1928, the gold standard was reinstated after having been suspended since the beginning of the war, but with the franc - now called the Poincaré franc after the French prime minister - devalued to 1/5 of its pre-war value, in gold. Discussions on how to handle the piastre continued, and in 1930 it was decided to leave the silver standard and tie the piastre to gold, just like the franc. One piastre was defined as 0.655 g of 0.900 gold, which was exactly 10 times the amount for 1 franc. Thus the exchange rate became fixed at 10 francs. While tying the piastre to the franc in 1930 provided a stability that had certainly been lacking through "the crazy years", it also meant that the Indochinese economy lost the freedom it had had. Now it was tied to France, and anything that happened to the economy there would immediately be transferred to the Indochinese economy. That was not always beneficial, as we shall see in my next post about the following decade, the 1930s. A new banknote1 piastre, French Indochina, 1927-31. 148 x 93 mm.   By 1921 it was also time for a more modern design of the 1 piastre banknote. Out goes the 1880s design with Madame 'France' looking down on Ms 'Annam' in a most colonial way (shown in my previous post) and in comes a chic Athena - or is it a French Marianne dressed up in an Attic helmet? - with eyes firmly fixed at the horizon. Gazing back at her, as a watermark from the opposite white field, is a Vietnamese guy in a traditional, less warlike, Vietnamese headpiece. (The overall design lends a lot from the contemporary French 5 francs note. Not surprising, as artist and engraver are the same for both.) By its signatures this particular banknote can be dated to the period 1927-31. The director, Thion de la Chaume, has a vigorous signature indeed! The reverse states the value in various ways: Vietnamese, Cambodian/Khmer, Chinese, and we have a big $ sign too. Rather interesting is the yin yang symbol in flames at the bottom. Why that appears here (and on some other notes by Banque de l'Indochine, not all of them issued for Indochina), I don't know. Perhaps it was just an expression of the Western vogue for Orientalism in the decades before, rather than having some deeper meaning? Next timeEnter the 1930s and another devaluation of the piastre.
Edited by erafjel
05/09/2023 08:59 am
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Fascinating! |
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Post #7:The Piastre Goes Light
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On The Downhill1 piastre, French Indochina, 1931. Silver 0.900, 20.0 g, 35 mm.  Even though the piastre was now on a gold standard since 1930, it continued to be a silver coin (so did the French franc by now). That was deemed necessary, not just because gold coins were becoming unfashionable, but also because silver was the only metal that was accepted for trade in the Far East. However, in order not to be overvalued, it had to be reduced in weight. The new piastre - shown above - was still 0.900 silver, but weighed only 20 g and the diameter was reduced to 35 mm. The silver content was now in proportion to the debased 10 c and 20 c coins, which since 1921 were only 0.680 silver. It had a modern design, with the French Marianne wearing a Phrygian cap ornated with olive branches. The obverse looks very much like contemporary French coins. The reverse shows the denomination in a frame inspired by Vietnamese art and if one looks closely at the inscription, the letters too have a touch of Orientalism to them. Leaving the gold standard - and notIn September 1931, Britain left the gold standard. Towards the French franc which was still on the gold standard (and the Indochinese piastre which was tied to the franc), the British pound lost 30 % of its value in a couple of months. Although that might have strengthened French patriotic feelings, it led to that French and Indochinese products became correspondingly more expensive in the eyes of importers. For Indochina that was particularly noticeable, since most other Far East currencies were tied to the pound. A pressure on prices followed, leading to sinking incomes, wages, and standard of living - even famine. In 1936, among the last countries to do so, France finally left the gold standard. The franc and the piastre were devalued, which now led to more expensive imports, inflation and increased cost of living. Timing is everything, and France was not too successful. And the Indochinese paid the price. One business branch flourished though, namely forgery. With the nominal value of the piastre and its fractions being more than double the cost of the silver they contained, "private" manufacturing of copies with fairly ok silver content became profitable. This was one reason that the 1931 issue of the weight and size reduced piastre became a one-off and that minting of the silver fractions was suppressed after 1930. It was resumed in 1936-37, which is when the last regular silver coins - like the 20 cent piece below - for French Indochina were minted. 20 centièmes, French Indochina, 1937. Silver 0.680, 5.39 g, 26 mm.  Next timeThe 50 cent coin is revived after 40 years absence - we shall see why!
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Post #8:The Return Of The Half Piastre
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The Lao Silver Mountains
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Money Does Not Smell50 centièmes, French Indochina, 1936. Silver 0.900, 13.56 g, 29 mm.  So, since 1930 all piastres are reduced weight and the fractions are debased since 1921. That is what we learnt in the previous posts. And here, in 1936, we have a full-weight, non-debased, nice ½ piastre of good 0.900 silver, weighing 13.5 grams, just as all good ½ piastres have been like since 1895, right? So ... what is going on? What does a new 50 cent coin of the old expired type do here, late in the 1930s? A good question, indeed. And the coin is legit, 4 million of these were minted in Paris, all in 1936. Not much is written about this coin. In fact, I have not found any primary, or even secondary, sources explaining what the purpose of this coin was. But, in the absence of official documents, there is still a plausible explanation: Opium. Running a colony was costly, and although the export of rice and other foodstuffs gave some income to the government by taxation, one did not want to tax the exports too heavily. Better then to tax the local consumption. Thus the Cochinchinese and later the Indochinese governors levied taxes on salt, alcohol - and opium. Salt the population consumed voluntarily, alcohol and opium needed some encouragement, so government controlled destilleries and opium houses were built to make the products easily accessible. While in France, opium was restricted to medical use only, it was freely available in Cochinchina/Indochina. In the early 20th century there were 1300 government controlled opium houses in French Indochina. Purchase, processing, and sales of opium was taxed. Of the colonial budget, 20-40 % came from the opium trade. Much opium was imported from China, but the supply was irregular. The French authorities therefor encouraged the farmers in the Lao highland - where the climate was suitable - to grow opium. And so they did. The only thing was, they required payment in silver. Banknotes and debased coins were of little or no interest to them; if you wanted their opium, you pay up with silver ingots, or good silver piastres.  In the opium house.Source: belleindochine.free.frSo why just a half piastre, surely the opium batches cost enough to not require payment in fractions? Well, the 1 piastre place in the monetary system was already taken by the weight reduced 1931 version; reverting back to a full weight coin would be weird ... But the 50 cent coin had not been minted regularly since 1896, so why not reviving that, as if nothing had happened apart from a pause in the minting. This was the last regular 0.900 silver coin minted in French Indochina (see Note 1). Rumor has it that much later, in the 1960s, American pilots carried a number of these in their survival kit. I have not been able to corroborate that, and I suppose any silver coins known to the population would do - perhaps someone knows?  1 piastre, 50 c, 20 c, and 10 c of the original design.Next timeWith war coming up, debasement hits the money in 1939. NotesNote 1: In 1943-45, during World War 2, a special silver coinage specifically intended for the opium trade was minted by the Customs authorities (who were in charge of the opium trade). It was not marked as "French Indochinese", it just stated a value in Chinese and Lao. There were a couple of different designs, one is seen here.
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Posted 05/04/2023 4:10 pm
