2 Pounds

The Bank of Ceylon was established by royal charter in 1841, making this 1845 note among the earliest paper currency issues from the island under British colonial administration. The bank operated from Colombo and maintained branches at Kandy and Galle, though notes of this denomination would have circulated primarily among merchants and the colonial administrative class — not the general population, who dealt almost exclusively in coin.

P#111A is exceptionally rare. The Bank of Ceylon was wound up in 1866 following a severe liquidity crisis, and surviving notes from this period are almost never seen in private hands. Most known examples reside in institutional collections.