Catalog
100 Rupees Oriental Bank Corporation
| Issuer | Oriental Bank Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1881 |
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| Value | 100 Rupees |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on red and green guilloche underprint. At left, an allegorical enthroned female figure flanked by lions; at right, a bust of Mercury with caduceus; British royal coat of arms at upper centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 100 COLOMBO THE ORIENTAL BANK CORPORATION INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER රුපියල්සියයයි. நூறுரூபாய் Promise to pay the Bearer on demand at their Office here One Hundred Rupees value received. COLOMBO 1st January 1881 By Order of the Court of Directors ENTD. ACCOUNTT. MANAGER. CEYLON BRADBURY WILKINSON & CO ENGRAVERS LONDON (Translation: One hundred rupees.) |
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| Comments |
The Oriental Bank Corporation collapsed in May 1884, making any note issued in 1881 part of the final operational years of what had been one of the most expansive colonial banks of the nineteenth century. At its peak the bank held note-issuing rights across Ceylon, Hong Kong, Mauritius, and parts of India — a genuinely unusual breadth for a private institution. The failure, triggered by a combination of bad Ceylon coffee plantation loans and a silver depreciation crisis, was the largest bank collapse British India had yet seen.
Bradbury Wilkinson produced the plates in London, though circulation occurred across multiple territories simultaneously, complicating provenance attribution on surviving examples.