The Bảo Đại Thông Bảo ( Hán tự: 保大通寶) was a round

Copper-alloy Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion. The best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, and brass, using zinc instead. Both of t ...

coin with a square hole produced by the Nguyễn dynasty under French protection and was the last cash coin produced both in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

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 Hanoi and 1560 kilometers (969 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh City. Thanh ...

Mint, while the machine-struck variants were produced in

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

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 (啓定通寶) that bore his father's name 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, includ ...

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

government of the Nguyễn dynasty The government of the Nguyễn dynasty, officially the Southern Court ( Vietnamese: ''Nam Triều''; Hán-Nôm: 南朝) and commonly referred to as the Huế Court (Vietnamese: ''Triều đình Huế''; Hán-Nôm: 朝廷化), centred around the ...

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. 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'', 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 a behavior where people or animals accumulate food or other items. Animal behavior ''Hoarding'' and ''caching'' are common in many bird species as well as in rodents. Most animal caches are of food. However, some birds will a ...

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% (a negative inflation rate). Inflation reduces the value of currency over time, but sudden deflatio ...

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 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. 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 ( vi, Hải Phòng, ), or Hải Phòng, is a major industrial city and the third-largest in Vietnam. Hai Phong is also the center of technology, economy, culture, medicine, education, science and trade in the Red River delta. Haiphong wa ...

for shipment to Japan for the production of war materials. Cash coins would continue to circulate officially in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam until 1948 with an official exchange rate set of 20 cash coins for 1 đồng.

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 French). These machine-struck cash coins weighed 1.36 grams and had an official exchange rate of piastre, but were probably only valued at piastre. These coins were minted at the Hanoi Mint (operated by the

Banque de l'Indochine The Banque de l'Indochine (), originally Banque de l'Indo-Chine ("Bank of Indochina"), was a bank created in 1875 in Paris to finance French colonial development in Asia. As a bank of issue in Indochina until 1952 (and in French Paci ...

) 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 ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

). The machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins were designed by René Mercier. 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. 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 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 which can reflect homesickness or yearning for long-gone moments. There is a predisposi ...

" 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. There were two variants of this cash coins where one had a large version of the Chinese "大" (Đại) while the other had a smaller "大". 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 with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc 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 periodi ...

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 ...

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

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. There were a total of 98,000,000 machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo sapèques produced.Howard A. Daniel, III (3rd edition, 2018) ''The Catalog and Guidebook of Southeast Asian Coins and Currency. Volume I: France''. p. 97

References

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

Machine-struck Bảo Đại Thông Bảo cash coins

See also

References