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1 Pound Kandy; Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China
| Issuer | Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1864-1869 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Blue print on light blue guilloche underprint with red underprint elements. British Royal Arms vignette at top centre flanked by denomination ONE in large letterpress at left and right, with INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER arc above. Large brown lathe-work ONE overprint fills the centre, overlying the promise-to-pay text and KANDY branch designation. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | 1 PERKINS BACON & Co, LONDON |
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| Comments |
The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China opened its Kandy branch in 1862, making it one of the earliest foreign banking presences in Ceylon's hill capital — a town whose commercial importance rested almost entirely on coffee at the time. The collapse of coffee across the island due to leaf rust in the 1870s would eventually hollow out much of that interior trade network, but during this note's issue window the Kandy branch was actively financing plantation business.
Perkins, Bacon & Petch were the dominant security printers for colonial banking paper in this period, their intaglio work being considered effectively unforgeable by contemporary standards. Ceylon issues from this house are among the more difficult early Asian bank notes to locate in any condition.