10 000 Rupees

The Reserve Bank of India was established only in 1935, and this 10,000 Rupee note belongs to the earliest period of the bank's note-issuing activity — a denomination aimed squarely at interbank transfers and large commercial settlements, not retail use. Thomas De La Rue printed the series in London, as was standard for high-value Indian issues before the war made that arrangement logistically untenable.

The outbreak of World War II effectively ended regular shipments of banknote stock from Britain, and the 1938 series was withdrawn and demonetized relatively early. Surviving examples are scarce precisely because so few ever left the banking system in the first place.