1000 Rupees Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China

The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China obtained its royal charter in 1857, stepping into a space already contested by the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China and the Bank of Bengal. By 1870 it was operating across a string of Eastern ports, and high-denomination notes like this 1000 Rupee issue were instruments of trade finance rather than retail currency — moving between merchants, agency houses, and the bank's own branches.

Perkins, Bacon & Co. were the obvious choice for colonial bank printing at this period, their intaglio work considered difficult to counterfeit in markets where forgery was a persistent operational concern. The bank was absorbed into the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1892.