2 Rupees

The Government of Ceylon — not the Ceylon Currency Board, which replaced it in 1942 — issued currency directly under colonial Treasury authority during this period. Thomas De La Rue printed throughout the series, a relationship the colonial administration maintained from the late nineteenth century. The 2 Rupee denomination was the workhorse of everyday commerce on the island, circulating heavily in plantation districts where tea and rubber wages were paid in small notes.

Heavy circulation means surviving examples with clean folds and intact margins are genuinely uncommon. The watermark construction on De La Rue paper of this period typically incorporated the issuer's name within a continuous band — a detail worth examining under transmitted light.