500 Rupees Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China

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.