The Bảo Đại Thông Bảo (

chữ Hán ( , ) are the Chinese characters that were used to write Literary Chinese in Vietnam, Literary Chinese (; ) and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese language, Vietnamese. They were officially used in Vietnam after the Red River Delta region ...

: 保大通寶;

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

: ''Sapèque Bao-Daï'') was a round

Copper-alloy Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion. Of the large number of different types, the best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, ...

coin with a square hole produced by the

Nguyễn dynasty The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...

under French protection and was the last cash coin produced both in

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

and the world, this ended a long series of cast Vietnamese coinage that started with the Thái Bình Hưng Bảo in 970. The cast Bảo Đại Thông Bảo were produced at the

Thanh Hóa Thanh Hóa () is the capital of Thanh Hóa Province. The city is situated in the east of the province on the Ma River (Sông Mã), about 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of capital Hanoi and 1560 kilometers (969 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh Cit ...

Mint, while the machine-struck variants were produced in

Hanoi Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...

by the colonial French government. These coins bear the name of Emperor Bảo Đại who ascended the throne in 1926 but continued the production of the earlier

Khải Định Thông Bảo The Khải Định Thông Bảo (chữ Hán: 啓定通寳; French: ''Sapèque Khaï-Dinh'') was a French Indochinese sapèque coin produced from 1921 until 1933, the design of the coin was round with a square hole that was used for stringing th ...

(啓定通寶) that bore his father's

era name A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of rule, a t ...

until 1933 when he ordered the production of new coins with his reign name, which was normal as previous Vietnamese emperors also kept producing cash coins with the inscription of their predecessors for a period of time. The cast smaller Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins with blank reverses were only valued at piastre. In 1932 it was reported by ''L'Éveil économique de l'Indochine'' ("The Economic Awakening of Indochina") that cash coins were increasingly becoming scarce in Annam and

Tonkin Tonkin, also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is an exonym referring to the northern region of Vietnam. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this term referred to the domain '' Đàng Ngoài'' under Trịnh lords' control, including both the ...

, the ''L'Éveil économique de l'Indochine'' advised the

government of the Nguyễn dynasty The government of the Nguyễn dynasty, officially the Southern Court (; chữ Hán: 南朝) historicaly referred to as the Huế Court (; chữ Hán: 朝廷化), centred around the Emperor of Vietnam, Emperor (皇帝, ''Hoàng Đế'') as the A ...

to start producing zinc Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins to counter the scarcity of low denomination currencies, at this time zinc cash coins were still circulating in Annam while very few of them were left in Tonkin. During this period people were often unwilling to spend money because of the monetary scarcity of the time, economic policy advisors predicted that producing more cash coins would lower the cost of living for the population of the Nguyễn dynasty. The Bảo Đại Thông Bảo were probably cast into 1941 or 1942 and the production was stopped because the occupying

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

forces wanted the copper and were acquiring all of the cash coins they could find and stockpiling them in

Haiphong Haiphong or Hai Phong (, ) is the third-largest city in Vietnam and is the principal port city of the Red River Delta. The municipality has an area of , consisting of 8 urban districts, 6 rural districts and 1 municipal city (sub-city). Two o ...

for shipment to Japan for the production of war materials. Cash coins would continue to circulate officially in

the Democratic Republic of Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; ; VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-suppor ...

until 1948 with an official exchange rate set of 20 cash coins for 1 đồng.

''An muoi'' policy

On 29 September 1939 the

an newspaper ''l'Effort Indochinois'' reported that the governments of French Indochina and the Nguyễn dynasty pursued a policy called ''an muoi'' (the introduction of large denomination debased cash coins which only had a slightly higher intrinsic value to drive out lower value cash coins), which sought to stabilise the exchange rate between cash coins and the piastre at 360:1. During this period there was a market liquidity crisis worsened by the

hoarding Hoarding is the act of engaging in excessive acquisition of items that are not needed or for which no space is available. Civil unrest or the threat of natural disasters may lead people to hoard foodstuffs, water, gasoline, and other essentials ...

of low denomination cash coins by the general populace causing massive

deflation In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% and becomes negative. While inflation reduces the value of currency over time, deflation increases i ...

of cash coins. Despite starting the ''an muoi'' policy in 1937, by 1939 the exchange rate between the piastre and cash coins was at 5

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

per piastre while in some rural areas the price of the piastre went down as much as 3 strings per piastre. The deflation of cash coins proved to be very detrimental to the economy and local trade. The reason why these exchange rates were unstable was because cash coins remained independent of the piastre, despite their fixed exchange rates. Machine-struck cash coins tended to circulate more in Tonkin, while cast cash coins circulated more in rural Annam. On Decree Number 55 dated 02-07-Bảo Đại 16 (24 August 1941) the Bảo Đại Emperor issued an ordonnance which states that within the entire territory of ''Trung Kỳ'' (Annam) the exchange rate between copper-alloy cash coins and the piastre was fixed at a rate of 4 strings of cash coins for 1 French Indochinese piastre, replacing the earlier Decree Number 1 of 21 February 1934 which fixed it at 6 strings of 50 cash coins.Protectorate government of Annam - ''Bulletin administratif de l'Annam'', Publication date : 1941-10-01. Pages: 2757-2758. (in

). This decree applied to any cash coin bearing a reign era of the Nguyễn dynasty, with the definition of 4 strings of cash coins consisting of either 400 ''an-sau'' (6 văn) cash coins or 240 ''an-muoi'' (10 văn) cash coins. Meaning that 1 string of ''an-sau'' cash coins consisted of 100 coins, while 1 string of ''an-muoi'' cash coins consisted of 60 coins.

Machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins

The French simultaneously began minting brass machine-struck cash coins in

, with the same inscription as the cast Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins, with production officially starting in June 1933.BELAUBRE Jean, "Un technicien méconnu du monnayage : René Mercier et la sapèque Bảo Đại, 1933". Bulletin de la Société Française de Numismatique, avril 1980, n°4, pp. 685-687. (in

). These machine-struck cash coins weighed 1.36 grams and had an official exchange rate of

piastre The piastre or piaster () is any of a number of units of currency. The term originates from the Italian for "thin metal plate". The name was applied to Spanish and Hispanic American pieces of eight, or pesos, by Venetian traders in the Le ...

, but were probably only valued at piastre. These coins were minted at the Hanoi Mint (operated by the Banque de l'Indochine) because the French had cut the funding for producing cast cash coins at the Thanh Hòa Mint which meant that the Protectorate of Annam wasn't producing enough cast cash coins to satisfy the demands of the Vietnamese markets for these low value coins for every day exchange.Lục Đức Thuận, Võ Quốc Ky (2009), ''Tiền cổ Việt Nam, Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục''. Pages 93–94. (in

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

). The machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins were designed by

René Mercier René Mercier (end of the 19th century – 1 January 1973) was a 20th-century French composer and conductor. Biography Little is known about the life of René Mercier. Even his birth date is unknown. Composer of second rank, he is best known as ...

. According to J. de Monty in ''Volonté'' (4 August 1933) Mercier had the enormous advantage of allowing an excellent execution of the production process with the minimum expenditure on material and handling. It was all the more important to seek to bring together all of these conditions, since in any case the new piece reaches its face value almost by the sole price of the material from which it is made, the brass. 12 years after the fact René Mercier commented on the matter: "It is, in fact, common to strike coins with a circular central hole. But to the Annamese the square hole in the cash coin represents the (concept of) earth, surmounted by a round tabernacle representing the firmament (heaven), there could be no question of modifying, for technical reasons, the ancestral form of the pieces. However, a square hole must be oriented, which ordinary machines are reluctant to do." Because of the unusual process of minting cash coins compared to more conventional coins Mercier sought to reduce the production process to a simpler and cheaper operation. The special tool used to mint these cash coins was developed by the firm Aviat. This tool operates automatically on a strip of brass 85 mm wide, in a single stroke of the pendulum: five strikes, five square openings, one spacing and five cutouts giving five finished pieces. The strip is pushed by hand by the coin mechanism and driven mechanically by two guide knives. The yield quickly reached 100,000 pieces per day, per press. A total of 6 coin presses were produced for the machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo. The French authorities purely produced these coins for

market liquidity In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is a market's feature whereby an individual or firm can quickly purchase or sell an asset without causing a drastic change in the asset's price. Liquidity involves the trade-off between the ...

and the French colonial authorities did not accept these coins for any payment to the government such as taxes or levies. By 30 September 1933 approximately 30 million of these cash coins were introduced to the public for general circulation. While the machine-struck cash coins were successful in Tonkin, they were less welcomed by the rural Annamite population who preferred the cast variant and even millennium old cast cash coins from "the

good old days Good old days – commonly stylized as "good ol' days" – is a cliché in popular culture used to reference a time considered by the speaker to be better than the current era. It is a form of nostalgia that can reflect homesickness or Longing (e ...

" over the modernised cash coins. The reluctance to accept the machine-struck cash coins in rural Annam contributed to the deflation that cash coins were experiencing there. The machine-struck variants had a diameter 18 millimeters and a thickness of 7/10 of a millimeter. To have reached the ceiling of 100 million emissions, the production process had to last around 15 months at a rate of 7 to 10 million pieces per month. There were two variants of this cash coins, one had a large version of the Chinese character "大" (Đại) on its obverse, while the other variant had a smaller "大". According to J. de Monty the total volume of issue was around 100 million coins, i.e. 160,000 piastres of nominal value in round figures with an expenditure of 120,000 piastres for the purchase of brass, 36,000 piastres for costs manufacturing and handling, and 4,000 piastres for transport from Haiphong (the place of mintage). Meaning that under the supervision of Mercier the production cost of these cash coins broke even with their nominal value ( piastre). After the Japanese had taken over the country, they forced the production of Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins to stop because they were commandeering all copper in Vietnam. The Japanese created new sapèque-like coins that were made from

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

and by the

Japan Mint The is an Independent Administrative Institution of the Japanese government, responsible for producing and circulating the coins of Japan. The agency has its head office in Osaka with branches in Saitama and Hiroshima. The Japan Mint does not p ...

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

to replace these coins as the copper was being used for the production of Japanese weaponry and other military equipment, though the coins from Osaka didn't make it to the Vietnamese market as the shipping of war supplies was deemed more important by the Japanese government.

Mintage figures

The

started manufacturing in 1933 and produced a total of 98,000

of Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins, these figures include 49,000 strings of 100 « an sau » cash coins and 49,000 strings of 60 « an muoi » cash coins. This meant that a total of 4,900,000 « an sau » cash coins and 2,940,000 « an muoi » cash coins were produced as of 1936. There were a total of 98,000,000 machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo sapèques produced by the government of the French protectorate of Tonkin.Howard A. Daniel, III (3rd edition, 2018) ''The Catalog and Guidebook of Southeast Asian Coins and Currency. Volume I: France''. p. 97 The production of these machine-struck cash coins started in 1933 and ended in 1934 and they all entered general circulation on 30 April 1935. In total, using the rate of 7 strings for one piastre, the rate of exchange valid at the end of 1933, the number of cash coins manufactured between 1921 and 1936 had a value of approximately 1,315,000 piastres.

Notes

References

{{Nguyễn dynasty topics Currencies of Vietnam Modern obsolete currencies Economic history of Vietnam Cash coins by inscription

''An muoi'' policy

Machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins

Mintage figures

See also

Notes

References