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250 Company Rupees Union Bank, Calcutta
| Issuer | Union Bank, Calcutta |
|---|---|
| Year | 1847 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Heavy light-brown decorative borders frame the note, with a vignette of a standing female figure occupying the left border panel and a tiger vignette in the right border panel. The denomination numeral 250 appears in all four corners, rendered in four scripts: English, Bengali, Devanagari, and Urdu/Persian. A serial number is positioned at the upper left of the central text panel. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | UNION BANK UNION BANK, CALCUTTA ON DEMAND Promise to pay the Bearer Company Rupees Two Hundred and Fifty for the Trustees of the Union Bank |
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| Comments |
The Union Bank of Calcutta collapsed spectacularly in 1848, one of the most damaging bank failures in British India's financial history. This note, dated 1847, was issued in the final year before that collapse — the bank had been overextended for years, propped up partly by connections to indigo trading interests that were themselves under pressure. When the bank went down, it took a substantial portion of Calcutta's mercantile credit with it.
Surviving examples from this series are genuinely rare. The failure meant outstanding notes became worthless almost immediately, and most were either discarded or destroyed during the subsequent liquidation proceedings.