The Cents And Sapèques Of French Indochina

Post #8:

The Last Cast

or

Honey, I Shrunk The Coins

As described in my parallel thread on the piastre, the 1930s may have had more drama to it in the high end silver based economy. There were a few developments in the low end copper economy as well, though.


1 centième, French Indochina, 1938. Bronze, 5.0 g, 26 mm.



The first coin, however, does not show much development, it looks exactly like the 1900 coin presented in post #5. Only smaller - 5.0 g instead of 7.5 g. The shrink took place already in 1908. Better, or at least alternative, uses for the copper were available already back then. The design is the same, this coin was minted until 1939.


½ centième, French Indochina, 1939. Bronze, 4.0 g, 21 mm.



The ½ cent(ième) was a new denomination, minted 1935-40, and even smaller than the shrunk 1 cent of course. It filled a gap in the colonial denomination range, after the French sapèques of 1902 and 1905 - with a value of 1/5 respectively 1/6 cent - had been demonetized in the early 1930s. The local Vietnamese cash coins were there, of course - some of them even minted by the French authorities - but they were not part of the official economy. The depression of the 1930s also reached Indochina and there was an increased need for small values. This was France's way of marking a financial presence also at the very low end of daily transactions.

The design looks familiar, if you recall the French 25 centimes coin I showed in post #5. Those coins were minted until 1937, and this ½ cent is simply a copy of that design, hole and all. The text on the reverse has been changed, and the original olive branches have been replaced with rice stalks. It is interesting that the Chinese inscription is gone on the ½ cent while it remains on the 1 cent coin. Did the French authorities expect everyone to have learnt French by now, or did they just not care any longer?


The local cash coins

Anyhow, the local cash coins were still around. As late as 1926 (possibly later), the new emperor Bao Dai cast cash coins with his name and the usual thông bao. These are in fact the last cast cash coins, anywhere. China had abandoned the technique long ago, but the Vietnamese cherished the tradition. It could of course have been an element of silent protest against the colonial power in sticking with the traditional Vietnamese coins.


Cast cash coin, Vietnam/Dai Nam, emperor Bao Dai, 1926? Copper alloy, 3.4 g, 24 mm.



Like for the previous emperor Khai Dinh, the French authorities also struck cash coins for Bao Dai. This was done in 1933. They had the same design as the cast ones, but were considerably smaller (and were of course not liked by the locals).


Struck cash coin, Vietnam/Dai Nam, emperor Bao Dai, 1933. Brass, 1.4 g, 18 mm.



The mechanical workshop employed in 1921 for the striking of cash coins for Khai Dinh was still around, but the cost for manufacturing those coins had been high. Alternative options were sought out, and the commission landed with another Haiphong firm, Poinsard & Veyret. Poinsard & Veyret was a factory with various operations. In their own words, they made "furniture, paints, coins" among other things. They had a machine suitable for manufacturing coins by punching them from a sheet of brass, see picture below. Not a new method for striking coins for sure, but maybe the only time it has been employed to make cash coins? It was cheap and efficient but had its shortfalls. The coins near the edges tended to be weakly struck and slightly bent. They had to be manually checked and straightened with a light mallet.


A sheet of struck Bao Dai cash coins (see Note 1).
Source: NumisBids

As mentioned, the reception was tepid. One can understand that when placing the new, small coin next to a cast one (including also a coin struck for Khai Dinh):


Struck Khai Dinh cash (1921-22), cast Bao Dai cash (ca 1926), struck Bao Dai cash (1933).


Next time

The next and last post will look at the coinage during World War 2.


Notes

Note 1: Sold at an auction in 2014 for 14,000 Swiss francs (same in USD).

Post #9:

Times Of War

or

The Last Cent


Image based on material from https://www.histoire-et-philatelie.fr


Letter found in the estate of a Mme Duval in Toulouse, 1968. Some parts left out. (See Note 1.)

Hanoï le 25 octobre 1943

Chère maman,

I am writing to you to bring you all my news and because I love you and adore you. I hope this letter reaches you and finds you all well. Me and René are fine, despite the troublesome conditions.

...

Do you have little Paul there? Give him a hug from me! I have some new coins for his collection, I know how much he cherishes his coins and sits and looks at them, thinking of what it is like where they come from. I wish I could send him the coins, but I dare not trust the mail. Instead I am sending a photo of them, I hope he will be glad for that one until I can bring them to him!



The first one I am sure he already has, that's just a common 1 cent from before the war. But the one next to it is new. I understand it is actually made here in Hanoi (difficult to send them here from Paris, I guess). It was hard to find a good one, they are not so good at making coins here, I had to search for a long time before I found one that wasn't too badly struck. It is made from zinc. The copper they want for other purposes now. Too bad we have to use the copper to shoot at each other instead of handing money to each other, don't you agree?
The next one is so strange. I got it just the other day. I have never seen such a tiny coin before! And it is so light, weighs nothing it feels like. It is made of aluminium. Why they made such a small coin I don't know. If I sneeze it will fly away I think!

But the last one is really the strangest. ¼ of a cent, who has heard of such a coin? It is made of zinc and I think it is actually the Japanese who have made it. It sounds strange, but a friend of mine with connections told they came on a Japanese ship just a couple of weeks ago. Maybe they want to replace the sapèques? They melt those down for the copper, I have heard, and they are rarely seen nowadays, at least here in Hanoi.

Oh, I sometimes wonder what old grandpa Auguste would have thought of all this. You told me he actually made coins when he was stationed in Saigon in the 70s, or at least he said so. It was those old French centimes they made a hole in. How many was it he had made, single-handedly? Hundred thousand? It was more every time he told the story I think. Maybe he made it all up!

...

Kiss everyone from me.

Your devoted Colette


The War Reaches Indochina ...

In September 1940 Japanese troops entered Tonkin. (see Note 2 for a timeline). It was done in accord with the French Vichy government, in exchange for allowing (Vichy-)France to keep its territorial sovereignty over Indochina. Nevertheless, skirmish fighting took place (possibly initiated by the Japanese to demonstrate their military superiority over the badly equipped and trained Indochinese troops; France had also transferred many of the troops to Europe when war broke out in 1939). Japan exerted pressure on France, and in 1941 all of present Vietnam was in practice occupied by Japanese forces and France had been forced to give Japan concessions for mining and agriculture. That gave Japan access to for instance tin, rice and rubber, which was an important reason for the Japanese interest in Indochina. The politics and administration of the colony did not interest them too much, and they were happy to let France continue dealing with that.


... but minting continues!

Thus minting could continue under French direction. That meant the French Vichy government, or État Français - French State - as it was called. Just like during World War 1, minting of silver coins was canceled, everything above 10 cents was replaced with banknotes (there were even 5 c and 10 c banknotes during the war - see further down). The same for copper coins, but for the lowest denominations new coins in zinc and aluminium were minted. With transport routes not functioning, minting had to take place locally, in Hanoi, instead of Paris as had been the case before the war. There was also an exceptional issue of coins for French Indochina minted in Japan.


1 centième, French Indochina, 1941. Zinc, 5.2 g, 28 mm. Minted in Hanoi.



The last 1 cent bronzes were minted in 1939 and by then it was high time to change the design anyway. The image of France protecting Annam was replaced by a more neutral motif, very similar to the ½ cent issued a few years earlier. A Phrygian cap with a revolution cockade on it (mandatory on French Phrygians ), olive branches on the obverse, rice on the reverse. No Chinese/Vietnamese text. And made of zinc. The coins were minted 1940-41. The very first issues (or maybe just the patterns) were minted in Paris but soon minting was transferred to Hanoi due to the problems of transporting money across the oceans during war. Note that the coins kept the inscription Republique Française also after the French republic had been dismantled by the Germans and replaced by the Vichy État Français in June 1940 (see Note 3). The need for small change led to pragmatism before adherence to formalities. That is probably also a factor behind the common half-bad striking of many of these coins (my example above has some interesting die cracks, which is very common on these coins). Quantity before quality.


1 centième, French Indochina, 1943. Aluminium, 0.5 g, 17.5 mm. Minted in Hanoi.



While the first replacement for the pre-war 1 cent was slightly larger and heavier, the next one compensated for that by being the most tiny and light coin that has been minted for French Indochina. Made in aluminium and now with État Français. The design is reduced to a near minimum: Two rather simple rice stalks. Noteworthy is that the reverse inscription has been reduced to Indochine only; the Française part is removed (why I don't know).

This is the last 1 cent coin issued for French Indochina. The lowest post-war denomination was 5 cents. Speaking of which, the war version of that denomination looked as below. Also very small, same overall look as the 1 cent, only slightly more elaborated rice stalks.


5 centièmes, French Indochina, 1943. Aluminium, 0.8 g, 20 mm. Minted in Hanoi.



And then we have the odd ¼ cent, the only coin with such a denomination ever issued for Indochina. It may have been in line with the valuation of the cash coins/sapèques in relation to the piastre at the time, that is, 400 cash coins per piastre. Maybe even more odd is that France requested these coins to be minted by the Japanese. They were minted in Osaka, Japan, and shipped to Indochina (see Note 4). The Japanese of course knew that holes should be square, but again, that takes some special measures to achieve by striking, so a marked square around a circular hole had to do. Other than that, the same austere design with two rice stalks.


¼ centième, French Indochina, 1942. Zinc, 2.6 g, 20 mm. Minted in Osaka.




... and more emergency notes

As mentioned above, no silver was minted during the war. In fact, silver minting (10 cents and upwards) had ceased already a few years before the war. It was replaced in part by copper-nickel issues and in part by notes emitted by the Indochinese Treasury. A pre-war 10 cent treasury note is shown in the piastre thread, post #9. During the war, there were also tiny 5 cent notes emitted by the Treasury, as shown below. Compared to the rather elaborate pre-war emergency notes, the war notes are more strict and stylized. And they are no longer exchangeable into specie. Similar to the pre-war notes, the obverse is in French, while the reverse has the denomination in Vietnamese, Khmer, Laotian, and Chinese (and some details about what forgers can expect).


5 centièmes treasury note, French Indochina, 1942. 78 x 50 mm.





After the war

No denominations below 5 cents were minted after the war. The État Français coins were demonetized. Cash coins were officially no longer valid after the war, but it seems they remained in use for some time in remote areas.

Thus here ends the posts of coins from me, in this Indochinese small change thread. Don't let that stop you from posting your coins! And of course, if you have questions, I will be happy to try to provide an answer - not that I can guarantee I have one! Or if you have additional information, or corrections, please let me know. The documentation for these issues is sometimes sparse.

There will still be a couple more posts in the piastre thread before everything on the high end economy has been dealt with.


Notes

Note 1: Postal services between France and Indochina were of course affected by the war. The pre-war Air France air mail service was not operational. At times mail delivery was completely suspended, at times it could use irregular and sometimes improvised routes. Delivery times could be very long, several months, and private letters were regularly opened and inspected by military authorities.

Note 2: Timeline for events affecting French Indochina during World War 2:
- 1937: Japan invades China. The Chinese Nationalist government continues resistance from central and parts of southern China.
- Early 1939: Japan demands that French Indochina stops material and weapons transports from (British) Burma to the Chinese Nationalists over the Yunnan railway (see post #4 in the piastre thread). The demands are not met.
- Sept 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland, which is the start of World War 2.
- June 22, 1940: France surrenders to Germany. Northern France is occupied, in the south the Vichy government is allowed nominal indepence in return for cooperation with Germany.
- Aug 30, 1940: The French Vichy government agrees to cooperate with Japan and allows Japanese troops in Tonkin.
- July 29, 1941: Japanese troops are allowed in all of French Indochina.
- 1943: The Allies begin bomb raids on Indochina.
- Aug 25, 1944: Paris is liberated by the Allies. The Vichy government falls. The French and Japanese troops in Indochina are now enemies.
- March 9, 1945: The Japanese troops overthrow the colonial government and formally occupy Indochina.
- Aug 15, 1945: Japan surrenders to the Allies. Indochina is handed over to emperor Bai Dai, who is soon overthrown by Viet Minh. Eventually France regains control, but their time will be up in the end.

Note 3: There are also domestic French coins with the date 1941 and inscription République Française. The Vichy government did not begin minting coins with État Français until 1941. While preparing for that, minting of the existing coin types continued.

Note 4: According to sources, the mintage of these coins during 1942-44 was more than 500 million. It is uncertain how many that actually reached Indochina, since shipping of coins had lower priority than most other transport needs.

I am glad you enjoyed my posts, @joewobblie!

Please do post your essai when you have an opportunity!

Thanks erafjel for pointing this out to me. Some study papers I need to read now..

So far, the only thing I did actually know was the country group that made up French Indo-China.