500 Rupees

P#87 covers a long issue window — 1985 through 1992 — during which the Reserve Bank cycled through multiple signature pairs as Governors changed. Notes from this series carry the signature of whichever Governor was in office at the time of printing, making signature identification the primary tool for narrowing date of issue within the range. The most commonly encountered signatures are those of R.N. Malhotra and S. Venkitaramanan.

A print run of just over 12 million is modest for an Indian high-denomination note of this period, and attrition from heavy circulation has thinned surviving stocks considerably. The 500-rupee denomination itself had been withdrawn and reintroduced several times before this series; by the mid-1980s it was firmly back in regular use as inflation eroded the practical ceiling of the 100-rupee note.