1 Cent – French Indochina

In 1895, the currency situation in French Indochina was a complex and transitional system, reflecting the colony's recent political consolidation. The French had established the Union of Indochina (comprising Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, and Cambodia) just five years prior, and were actively working to replace a multitude of existing currencies with a unified, metropolitan-controlled system. The monetary landscape was a patchwork of Mexican silver pesos (still widely trusted in regional trade), Vietnamese silver ligatures and zinc sapèques, and French-issued silver piastres.

The cornerstone of French policy was the Piastre de Commerce, a large silver coin introduced in 1885. Its value was officially pegged to the French franc at a rate of 1 piastre = 2.70 francs, but this was an artificial, non-convertible rate maintained only for government accounting. In reality, the piastre's value was determined by its intrinsic silver content on the open market, where it often traded at a significant premium—frequently above 5 francs—due to high regional demand for silver. This created a persistent and problematic two-tier economy: one for official state transactions and another for the vibrant private commercial sector.

This duality led to economic distortions and opportunities for arbitrage, frustrating both colonial administrators and local merchants. The situation underscored France's struggle to fully integrate Indochina into its imperial economic sphere, as the colony remained financially oriented toward the silver-based trade networks of East and Southeast Asia rather than the gold-standard franc zone. Consequently, 1895 represents a period where French monetary authority was formally declared but not yet fully realized, with the silver piastre reigning as the dominant, yet unstable, unit of high-value trade.