Catalog
10 Rupees Oriental Bank Corporation
| Issuer | Oriental Bank Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1864-1873 |
| 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 | Perkins, Bacon & Co., London, United Kingdom |
| 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 intaglio print on white paper with fine guilloche border frame. The Royal Arms of Great Britain — supported by a lion and unicorn with motto "DIEU ET MON DROIT" — appears as a central top vignette, flanked by oval denomination cartouches reading "TEN 10 RUPEES" at left and right. The promise-to-pay text is set within a bold guilloche panel, with trilingual legends in Sinhala, Tamil, and English across the upper margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | රුපියල් දහය பத்துரூபாய் TEN RUPEES 10 INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER JAFFNA, CEYLON 1st, Oct. 1873 THE ORIENTAL BANK CORPORATION Promise to pay the Bearer on demand at their Branch here, or at their Bank in Colombo TEN RUPEES Value received. By order of the Court of Directors, Entd. Accountt. Agent. |
| 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 |
The Oriental Bank Corporation was chartered in London in 1851 and operated across British India, Ceylon, China, and the Straits Settlements — one of the few exchange banks with enough reach to make a private banknote issuance genuinely functional across multiple colonial territories. Perkins, Bacon & Co. produced the plates, the same London security printers responsible for many early colonial stamps and notes of the period, using their intaglio process to produce work difficult to counterfeit locally.
The bank collapsed spectacularly in 1884, wiped out largely by bad loans tied to Ceylon's coffee crop failures following the *Hemileia vastatrix* blight. Notes from this issue window predate that crisis by over a decade.