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!
10 Pounds Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China
| Issuer | Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1864-1869 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Black letterpress on green underprint; British Royal Arms vignette at top centre flanked by two oval "Ten" counters. The promise-to-pay text and bank title are printed in script and roman type across the centre, with Sinhalese and Tamil legends at top and bottom. Overprinted SPECIMEN diagonally in red across the lower half. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | £10 PERKINS BACON & Co, LONDON |
| 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 |
The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China received its royal charter in 1853, carved out of the earlier Union Bank of Calcutta. By the 1860s it was operating across Bombay, Calcutta, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore — a genuinely sprawling network for the period — and issuing notes denominated in pounds sterling rather than local currencies, a deliberate positioning to serve British merchant houses rather than indigenous trade.
Perkins, Bacon produced the plates using their established security printing techniques, the same house responsible for the world's first adhesive postage stamp. The £10 face value placed this note firmly in commercial and inter-bank use; retail transactions would never have seen it.