1 Rupee Ragama store; type 2

Private trade tokens on paper — what collectors call "store notes" or "bazaar notes" — were common across colonial Ceylon, issued by estates, mills, and company stores to pay workers in scrip redeemable only at the issuer's own shop. The Ceylon Ice & Cold Storage Company's Ragama store notes are unusual participants in that tradition: ice and cold storage was a capital-intensive infrastructure business, not the typical plantation operation that issued this kind of scrip.

Ragama, a town north of Colombo on the main railway line, was a logical distribution point. Whether workers were paid directly in scrip or whether these circulated more broadly among local traders is not firmly established.