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1.000 Ryksdaalders (of 48 Heavy Stivers Indian Money)
| Issuer | Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (United East India Company), Kolumbo |
|---|---|
| Year | 1794 |
| Type | Pattern or trial banknote |
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| Obverse description | Letterpress-printed certificate on aged paper, entirely in portrait format, with the handwritten note number 'N. Ninety One' at upper left and manuscript date notations at upper right. The main body comprises three text blocks in Dutch, Sinhalese, and Tamil scripts, certifying the bearer to One Thousand Ryksdaalders of 48 Heavy Stivers Indian Money, issued at Colombo on 18 January 1794. Two manuscript signatures appear at the lower centre, accompanied by a small rectangular ink seal at lower right, with additional manuscript annotations along the left margin recording interest payments. |
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| Obverse lettering | N. Ninety One Zegge Een Duyzent Ryksdaalders 1000 WY ondergetekende Certificeeren, dat Thomas de Compagnie te goet heeft Een Duyzent Rykdaalders van 48. zware Stuijvers, Indisch-Geld, voor welkers waerde dees Kredietbrief overal ten deezer Eilande gangbaar zal gehouden worden. KOLOMBO den 18. JANUARY, Anno 1794. 4 p[ercen]t p[er] annum on this Bond is brief payable by the British Government of Ceylon under the Conditions of the Sixth Article of the Capitulation of Colombo |
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By 1794 the VOC was functionally insolvent, and the notes it issued from its Ceylon operations were already circulating under a cloud of institutional collapse — the Company would surrender its charter less than two years later, in 1796, when the Dutch Republic itself fell to French Revolutionary forces. This note is denominated in "Indian Money," a distinct local accounting unit based on heavy stivers, separate from the metropolitan Dutch currency system and used to manage trade balances within the Company's Asian network.
Ceylon issues from this final period are among the rarest surviving VOC paper, as redemption was chaotic and most notes were destroyed or simply abandoned when British forces occupied Colombo in 1796.