10 Rupees

Pick 39 spans a long issue window — 1949 through 1972 — during which the Reserve Bank of India was still working through the fundamental question of what a post-independence currency should look like. The series went through several signature varieties, each corresponding to a different RBI Governor, and these signatures are the primary means of distinguishing earlier from later printings within the type.

India's Security Printing Press at Nashik had not yet fully assumed domestic production of all denominations by the time this series began, and some early printings involved contracted external facilities. Collectors tracking this distinction should treat the signature sequence carefully — Deshmukh, Rama Rau, Bhilwala, Bhattacharya, and subsequent governors each mark a distinct phase.