5 Rupees

Burma's first post-independence currency series, of which this note is part, was issued after the country gained independence from Britain in January 1948 — a matter of months before the assassination of Aung San and the outbreak of the Karen insurgency destabilized the new government entirely. The decision to retain Thomas De La Rue for printing was pragmatic: the colonial infrastructure for currency production was still in place, and the new Union government had neither the time nor the facilities to establish its own.

Pick 35 is among the scarcer denominations of the series in circulated condition, as the civil conflicts of 1948–49 severely disrupted normal distribution in large parts of the country.