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10 Rupees
| Issuer | Oriental Bank Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1870 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on cream paper within a fine geometric border. The British Royal Arms vignette, supported by a lion and unicorn, is centered at the top with the inscription INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER arching above it; oval guilloche cartouches bearing the denomination TEN / 10 / RUPEES appear at upper left and right. The body of the note carries the issuer name THE ORIENTAL BANK CORPORATION in bold letterpress above a hatched underprint panel containing the promise-to-pay text in script, with the place and date HALDAMULLE, CEYLON 1st Jan. 1870 above, and denomination and authorization lines below, flanked by printed signature roles. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Black intaglio print on plain paper, the design composed entirely of three large lathe-work guilloche rosettes arranged horizontally: a large central rosette of elaborate concentric geometric and floral patterns flanked by two smaller matching rosettes of quatrefoil form, all executed in fine engine-turned steel-plate engraving. The printer's imprint of Perkins, Bacon & Petch, London appears in small lettering at the lower centre. |
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| Comments |
The Oriental Bank Corporation was a British overseas bank chartered in 1851 and headquartered in London, with operations stretching from India to Mauritius, Ceylon, China, and beyond. It collapsed spectacularly in 1884, making surviving pre-failure notes — particularly those from its earlier decades — genuinely uncommon. By 1870, the bank was already overextended, though that would not become apparent to depositors for another fourteen years.
Perkins, Bacon & Petch were the dominant security printers of the period, their steel-intaglio process producing the fine-line work that made forgery difficult. The same firm printed postage stamps for dozens of colonial territories throughout this era.