Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Rupee and 8 Annas Calcutta; Hundi promissory note
| Issuer | Private merchant / indigenous banker (Shroff) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Yes |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Entirely handwritten hundi in Devanagari script in black ink on cream handmade paper, with manuscript text arranged in diagonal and horizontal lines across the full face. An embossed revenue stamp seal is present in the upper right quadrant, partially inked, showing a multi-bordered octagonal or circular device with internal inscriptions. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | देवनागरी लिपि में हस्तलिखित पाठ (Devanagari handwritten text throughout) |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Hundi instruments like this occupied a parallel financial universe that colonial banking infrastructure never fully displaced. Indigenous shroffs and mahajans moved enormous sums across the subcontinent using these negotiable instruments, their enforceability resting entirely on reputation networks and the hawala chain of corresponding agents rather than any statutory guarantee. The British administration, perpetually uneasy about this autonomous credit system, nonetheless depended on it — the hundi market financed much of the inland cotton and opium trade that fed Calcutta's export economy.
The embossed revenue stamp is the colonial government's only fingerprint on this otherwise private document — mandatory under successive Indian Stamp Acts as a condition of legal enforceability, its denomination calibrated to the face value of the instrument.