6 Annas Calcutta; Hundi promissory note

Hundis occupy a category entirely outside state-issued currency — they are instruments of the indigenous Indian credit system, legally binding promissory obligations that moved money across vast distances without physical coin ever changing hands. The Calcutta mercantile community relied on them heavily through the colonial period, particularly for trade settlement between interior markets and the Bengal port economy. A hundi denominated in annas rather than rupees suggests a small-value retail or petty credit transaction, the kind generated in volume by cloth merchants and grain dealers rather than the large banking houses.

The embossed stamp is the operative authentication mark here — without it, the instrument had no legal standing under the Negotiable Instruments Act.