| Obverse description |
The obverse is an unissued specimen printed in black intaglio on white paper. At the top, the heading 'CEYLON BRANCH.' appears in bold letterpress within a decorative border. A central vignette displays the Royal Arms of Great Britain flanked by a horse and a lion, with the denomination '1 POUND' appearing in two oval cartouches on either side, inscribed in both English and Sinhalese script. The main text panel reads 'THE ORIENTAL BANK. Promises to pay the Bearer on demand at the Office of its Branch here in the Currency of the Island, ONE POUND. Value received.' with the imprint 'BY ORDER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. BATHO & BINGLEY, 76, Lombard Street, London.' The word 'SPECIMEN.' appears in bold at the lower right, with manuscript signature lines for 'Ent.', 'Acc.', and 'MANAGER'. Sinhalese script lettering runs along the left and right vertical borders as well as along the bottom margin. |
The Oriental Bank Corporation began as the Bank of Western India in 1842, rechartered and renamed in 1845 as it expanded aggressively across British colonial trade routes — Ceylon, India, Mauritius, China. This Colombo-payable pound note falls in the earliest years of that rebranded operation, when the bank was still establishing correspondent relationships and branch authority across the Indian Ocean network.
Batho & Bingley were a minor London security printer of the period, nowhere near as dominant as Perkins Bacon or De La Rue. Their work on colonial bank notes is uncommon enough that attribution is sometimes disputed when margins are trimmed.