Lao 1957 100 Kip

When I was in Vientiane, Lao's capital city, I had a chance to acquire an old 100 Kip note. I had not been following up on Lao's monetary notes before so when I bought it I did not how old it was. I did know that Lao was formerly part of the French Indo-China colony and this note was similar to most of the European colonial currency issued then.

I found out now that this 100 Kip note was actually issued in 1957. Prior to that, Lao was using a currency note which served all the three French colonies of Vietnam, Cambodia and Lao. In 1957, the Lao government issued notes denominated solely in kip. The notes were for 1, 5, 10, 20 and 50 kip printed by the Security Banknote Company, 100 kip printed by the Banque de France and a commemorative 500 kip printed by Thomas De la Rue.

This is that 100 Kip note:

Lao 2000 Kip Note

When we were in Lao, my Minister took the entire delegation for dinner. After his PA had settled the bill, I saw he had an interesting modern looking note. I took a closer look at the 2000 Kip note. By the design  you can tell it was new. I did not have much time to ask or could find someone knowledgeable enough about the note and so I assumed that the 2000 Kip note was a new note and Lao did not have one before.  The 2000 Kip note looked like this:

 

When I arrived home in Brunei, I went through my collections and I found out that Lao had produced a 2000 Kip note and I had the older one at home:

 



Money from Lao PDR

I was attending the 1st ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Women and other related meetings in Lao PDR last week. It was my first trip there and I was very much looking forward to the meetings. Obviously the Lao currency was on the top of things I wanted to get from Vientiane.

I had a number of Lao currency notes before. Actually I didn't know there were Laotian. I was thinking there were Cambodians. Anyway, I managed to get a whole set of current currency as well as a few pieces of the older Lao money. I was quite surprised when the hotel told me about a new 100,000 Kip note which just came out a few months ago. Apparently the government wanted the Laotian to use more Lao money. Actually this is true. I only brought US Dollars and easily use that. When I went shopping, the Laotian sometimes give change in Thai Baht. The Thais feature strongly in Lao's economy. I managed to get myself this almost uncirculated 100,000 Kip note: