Resurrecting ancient banknotes

A PROFESSION OF METICULOUSNESS

Having developed a passion for collecting antique banknotes since his school days, Nguyen Van Truong left his hometown of Vinh Linh (Quang Tri) to settle in Da Nang City in his early twenties, starting a business trading antique currency. Holding old banknotes that were torn and damaged, Truong felt a pang of regret, thinking to himself, "If only they were intact, they would fetch a much higher price." After many such experiences, Truong decided to try mending torn banknotes and restoring them by redrawing the original lines. "That was also a way to test my artistic talent after I dropped out of the fine arts program (Hue College of Education) in 2021," Truong recounted.

The first banknote Trường restored was torn at one corner and made of old paper. Every time he held a banknote in his hand, Trường's biggest question was what type of paper would be suitable for patching. He inquired with experienced collectors of antique coins and learned that books printed on straw paper (paper made from straw) were more likely to match the antique banknotes. Each time he visited bookstores in Da Nang, Trường brought back many old books to experiment with. After many attempts, Trường concluded that the most suitable paper was pages from old books printed in the 1960s.

Nguyen Van Truong is restoring an old banknote.

"To restore a banknote, I have to stockpile a lot of old books so that every time I receive money from a customer, I don't have to scramble to find paper. Even so, sometimes I buy dozens of kilograms of books and only get a few pages that aren't printed, or only get a very small portion of the margins," Truong shared. To make a torn banknote whole and revived as it was originally requires many steps. First, he has to patch the torn part with paper, then he presses the banknote to make it stiff and rough. "To make the banknote look natural, I have to use tools to thin the paper so that the seams are invisible to the naked eye. Next, I press the paper flat. The final step is to redraw the missing lines on the newly patched section of the banknote. That's also the most difficult step," Truong shared.

Truong showed me the ancient banknotes he had successfully restored. Comparing them to the original copies before his work, it was truly difficult to tell with the naked eye that these were banknotes that had faded or been torn in places… To achieve such results, Truong had persistently practiced every day and meticulously crafted each stroke.

MASTER OF BAMBOO PEN

Truong's skill in recreating ancient banknotes reminds me of a male artist in a 2018 Hong Kong film who drew a realistic-looking 100 USD bill. Of course, compared to this fictional character, Truong can't quite match. But if he were to draw a banknote on paper, he could absolutely do it with colors, patterns, and lines that closely resemble the original. Showing me a 100 USD bill he drew, Truong further explained: "Each banknote is a different color palette. For drawing banknotes for entertainment, the colors don't need to be perfectly accurate. But with restored banknotes, it's essential to find the right colors, matching the banknotes that have been stained by time."

It took Trường a whole year of experimenting with different color combinations before he finally discovered the secret to achieving the perfect match. Another difficulty was that the patched paper was made of coarse paper, which easily smudged, so the color composition had to be carefully controlled. Otherwise, just one stroke of the pen would ruin the newly patched paper, rendering all the effort of patching, pressing, and preparing the paper useless. According to Trường, the most challenging aspect of restoring ancient coins is drawing the tiny patterns and motifs on the paper. Initially, Trường desperately searched for pens with pointed tips, but still couldn't achieve the right fineness. To draw these lines, Trường created his own unique set of tools with pens sharpened from bamboo with ultra-sharp tips, allowing him to draw the base lines so that larger pens could be used to draw over them.

"I once restored a 20 Piastres banknote from Thanh Thai – one of the first paper banknotes of Vietnam, dating back about 100 years. The banknote was torn into three pieces, making it very difficult to peel off the adhesive without losing color, and the reassembly process had to be meticulous. Adding to the difficulty was the banknote's unique color… It took me 15 days to restore it. When the customer received it back, they were overjoyed because the banknote was not only valuable but also meaningful to its owner," Truong recounted. He has also restored many other valuable banknotes, such as Thanh Thai banknotes of various denominations, trial print banknotes, Indochinese banknotes, and Ho Chi Minh banknotes made of straw paper… These types of paper banknotes are very difficult to restore and take a lot of time.

"Are there any types of banknotes that Trường can't restore?" I asked. Trường explained that these were banknotes that had been chemically treated to make them look new again, or those where the paper had deteriorated. When he receives such banknotes, Trường refuses them because he worries that he might not only fail to restore them but also damage them. "There are old banknotes of little value, while the restoration fee might be equal to that amount. I will discuss it with the customer so they can consider whether or not to proceed. If they want to, I'm willing to. Depending on the difficulty and the customer's restoration requirements, the fee ranges from a few hundred thousand to several million dong," Trường shared. (to be continued)

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nhung-nghe-doc-la-phuc-sinh-nhung-to-tien-co-185241014233405929.htm