5 Rupees Jaffna; Oriental Bank Corporation

The Oriental Bank Corporation collapsed in May 1884, making any note issued in its final years — including this 1881 Jaffna branch issue — a relic of one of British Asia's most spectacular banking failures. The Corporation had overextended itself across Ceylon, India, Mauritius, and the Far East, and when the crash came, noteholders in branch towns like Jaffna were left scrambling. Bradbury Wilkinson printed for numerous colonial issuers of the period, and the plates for Oriental Bank branch notes typically carried the specific payable location as a typeset addition to a shared base design.

Jaffna branch issues are considerably scarcer than Colombo examples from the same series.