5 Katis Rubber Export Coupon

Sarawak's rubber industry operated under a quota and coupon system in the late colonial period, with exporters required to hold valid coupons against each shipment. The Controller of Rubber issued these in denominations tied to the kati — a Malay unit of weight still in common commercial use at the time — rather than converting to imperial measures, a practical concession to how trade was actually conducted at the point of export.

Printing by the Survey Department of the Federated Malay States is an unusual attribution for a fiscal document of this type. That department's primary mandate was cartographic, and the assignment suggests the FMS government was filling a capacity gap rather than using a dedicated security printer. The watermarked paper adds a layer of anti-counterfeiting precaution that many contemporaneous colonial commodity coupons simply lacked.

The 1941 date places production immediately before the Japanese invasion of Malaya in December of that year.