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10 Rupees Galle; Oriental Bank Corporation
| Issuer | Oriental Bank Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1866-1867 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on white paper. The British Royal Arms vignette is centred at top, flanked by two oval guilloche panels each inscribed 'TEN RUPEES / 10'. Bilingual inscriptions in Sinhala and Tamil appear above the arms, with the issuer name and promise-to-pay text in English below, all within a fine engraved border. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse lettering | Perkins, Bacon & Co, London. Patent Hardened Steel Plate. |
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| Comments |
The Oriental Bank Corporation held a Royal Charter and operated as one of Britain's major overseas banks, with branches from Mauritius to Hong Kong. Its Ceylon operation issued notes through the Galle branch specifically — "Galle" printed as the place of payment, not a reference to any local printing or engraving. The plates came from Perkins, Bacon & Petch in London, the same firm responsible for some of the earliest postage stamps and a significant portion of British colonial currency throughout the nineteenth century.
The bank collapsed in 1884, a failure that wiped out shareholders and left branch networks across Asia in sudden disorder. Notes from the 1866–1867 issue period survived in very small numbers, most having been redeemed or destroyed long before the failure.