1 Rupee

Ceylon's Central Bank was established in August 1950, and this 1 Rupee note belongs to the very first series it issued — a deliberate assertion of monetary independence from the former Currency Board system that had operated since 1884 under colonial administration. The transition mattered politically: the Currency Board had kept Ceylon's reserves entirely in sterling, with no discretionary monetary policy whatsoever.

Bradbury Wilkinson's New Malden facility handled a significant volume of Commonwealth and colonial successor-state work in the early 1950s, making Ceylon one of several newly independent nations that retained British security printers even while shedding British monetary oversight.