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25 Cents Darvel Bay
| Issuer | The Darvel Bay (Borneo) Tobacco Plantations Limited |
|---|---|
| Year | 1880-1890 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Dollar (1882-1941) |
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| Obverse description | Printed in black on a blue guilloche underprint, the obverse carries a central circular vignette at upper centre enclosing a tobacco leaf motif, encircled by the company name in letterpress. The denomination numeral '25' appears in scalloped cartouches at upper left and right within an intricate lace-pattern border frame. The promise-to-pay text is set in italic script with 'TWENTY FIVE CENTS' in bold letterpress at centre, above signature lines for Accountant and General Manager at lower left and right, with the printer's imprint at foot. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 25 THE DARVEL BAY (BORNEO) TOBACCO PLANTATIONS, LIMITED. Will pay to Bearer on demand the sum of TWENTY FIVE CENTS at their Lahat Datu or Lamin Segama Estates Accountant General Manager Charles Skipper & East London. |
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| Comments |
The Darvel Bay (Borneo) Tobacco Plantations Limited was one of several private agricultural concessions operating in British North Borneo during the 1880s under the newly chartered British North Borneo Chartered Company, which assumed administrative control of the territory from 1881. Labour was scarce, infrastructure nearly absent, and currency from the mainland rarely penetrated the interior — conditions that pushed plantation operators to issue their own scrip for worker payments and on-site trade.
Charles Skipper & East handled a surprisingly wide range of colonial and quasi-commercial currency printing in this period, and the Darvel Bay notes fall squarely into that category: functional instruments for an isolated economy, not legal tender in any formal sense.