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100 Rupees
| Issuer | Government of Ceylon |
|---|---|
| Year | 1926-1939 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Rupee (1871-1972) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Printed in black and olive-green on pale paper, the obverse is a typographic design without a pictorial vignette, centred on a large green guilloche underprint reading "HUNDRED" across the middle field. The issuer's title appears in an ornate cartouche at the top, flanked by circular denomination medallions bearing "100 RUPEES" at left and right; four serial numbers in red are placed at the upper-left, upper-right, lower-left, and lower-right corners. The promise-to-pay clause is rendered in italic script, with the place and date of issue at foot followed by two manuscript signatures above the printed designation "Commissioners of Currency"; denomination inscriptions in Sinhala and Tamil appear beneath the central value panel. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | THE GOVERNMENT OF CEYLON Promises to pay the Bearer on Demand the Sum of ONE HUNDRED RUPEES Colombo, 1st. June 1926. FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF CEYLON Commissioners of Currency |
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| Comments |
The Government of Ceylon — rather than a central bank — remained the direct currency issuer well into the colonial period, a structural holdover that distinguished Ceylon from many contemporaries where banking institutions had already assumed that role. These high-denomination notes circulated in a colonial economy dominated by tea and rubber export revenues, where a 100-rupee note represented serious transactional weight for most of the population.
De La Rue's London production for this series relied on watermarked paper as the primary security feature, modest by later standards but consistent with the printer's output for British colonial territories through this period. The long issue window — over a decade — means date variants within P#27 carry meaningfully different scarcity profiles.