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500 Rupees Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China
| Issuer | Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1870 |
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| Size | 199 x 116 mm |
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| Obverse description | Black letterpress print on white paper. The British Royal Arms vignette is centred at the top, flanked by two oval guilloche panels each bearing the denomination '500 RUPEES'. Bilingual inscriptions in Sinhala and Tamil appear above and below the central text block, with the issuer's name and promise-to-pay clause in bold script. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | CEYLON BRANCH රුපියල් පන්සියයයි ஐந்நூறு ரூபாய் 500 RUPEES INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER COLOMBO, 1st Jany. 1870 THE CHARTERED MERCANTILE BANK OF INDIA, LONDON & CHINA Promises to pay the Bearer on demand here FIVE HUNDRED RUPEES, value received. By order of the Court of Directors, Entd. ACCOUNTT. MANAGER PERKINS, BACON & Co, LONDON. (Translation: Five hundred rupees.) |
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| Comments |
The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China obtained its Royal Charter in 1857, shortly after the Crown assumed direct governance of India following the Mutiny — a moment when London was keenly interested in consolidating commercial banking influence across the subcontinent and the China trade routes. By 1870 the bank was operating branches from Bombay to Hong Kong, and high-denomination notes like this 500 Rupee issue functioned primarily as instruments of interbank settlement and large merchant transactions, rarely passing through ordinary commerce.
Perkins, Bacon & Co. handled the printing, the same firm responsible for the world's first adhesive postage stamp. Their intaglio security work on colonial bank paper from this period is technically accomplished and difficult to counterfeit — a deliberate choice for high-value instruments issued so far from the issuing office's direct oversight.