Catalog
100 Rupees
| Issuer | Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China, Galle |
|---|---|
| Year | 1880 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is typographically and engraved in a Victorian commercial style, with the heading CEYLON BRANCH at the top within a fine-line border frame. Two oval guilloche vignettes bearing the denomination numeral 100 / RUPEES flank a central royal coat of arms with the legend INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER; the denomination ONE HUNDRED is rendered in large bold letterpress text across the centre. The note bears the place and date of issue GALLE 1st July 1880, serial numbers at lower left and right, multilingual inscriptions in Sinhala and Tamil along the upper and lower margins, and a manuscript signature line By order of the Court of Directors with Entd. and Manager designations; a red CANCELLED overprint is visible. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in dark green and consists entirely of an elaborate geometric guilloche design with no text. A large central oval rosette is surrounded by a series of interlocking circular engine-turned lathe-work medallions, with two further guilloche roundels bearing the numeral 100 positioned at the left and right extremities, all set against a plain unprinted paper ground. |
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The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China was one of the exchange banks operating across British Asia, and its Galle branch occupied an unusual position — Ceylon's southern port was a major coaling and transit stop on the imperial sea route, but it was consistently overshadowed by Colombo for commercial banking volume. A 100 Rupee note issued from Galle rather than Colombo is consequently rare; the branch handled less trade finance and issued correspondingly fewer high-denomination instruments.
The Chartered Mercantile Bank was absorbed into the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China in 1892, after which all predecessor-bank notes were called in. Surviving examples from the Galle branch in any denomination are scarce.