50 Dollars

The Oriental Bank Corporation was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1851, the same year this note was issued — making it among the earliest paper the bank produced under that name. It had previously operated as the Bank of Western India, rechartered and rebranded as it expanded aggressively across British colonial territories from Bombay to Hong Kong to Mauritius.

The bank collapsed in 1884, a failure largely attributed to bad agricultural lending in Ceylon and speculative exposure in South Africa. Notes from the earliest years of the charter are rarely encountered.