10 Shillings / 5 Rupees

The Asiatic Banking Corporation was a short-lived British overseas bank operating primarily in India and the Far East, and this dual-denomination note — payable in both shillings and rupees — reflects the practical messiness of sterling-rupee exchange across colonial trade routes where neither currency fully dominated local commerce. Smith, Elder & Co. are better remembered today as publishers — they handled Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, and later Conan Doyle — but maintained a parallel printing operation that produced banknotes and commercial documents throughout the mid-nineteenth century.

The date range of over four decades suggests multiple issue series rather than continuous uninterrupted production.