Catalog
1 Rixdollar East India Company - King George III
| Issuer | East India Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1808-1817 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The upper and lower margins carry the denomination in text. At centre, a circular stamp-type vignette of Britannia is impressed, with the date inscribed directly below. Three manuscript or printed signatures appear beneath the vignette, attesting to the note's validity. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse varies by specimen: some examples are entirely blank, while others carry an ornate decorative pattern in the style typical of early nineteenth-century British colonial paper issues. |
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| Comments |
The East India Company's Ceylonese rixdollar issues are among the earliest printed paper currency to circulate in South Asia under British colonial administration. Ceylon had inherited the rixdollar as its unit of account from the Dutch VOC period, and the Company simply adopted it rather than imposing a new denomination — a pragmatic concession to an established monetary habit on the island.
These notes are printed on an unusually heavy stock, closer to light card than conventional banknote paper, which is why the composition is catalogued as cardboard. Surviving examples frequently show edge splits rather than the fold wear typical of thinner issues — the stiffness that preserved the paper's surface worked against it at the margins.