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3 Rixdollars
| Issuer | Dutch East India Company (VOC) / British Administration, Ceylon |
|---|---|
| Year | 1796 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Reverse description | Plain paper printed in black with the date legend set in letterpress across the top. Below, two handwritten manuscript signatures appear in ink, with a small rectangular official seal impressed in black between them. |
| Reverse lettering | KOLUMBO den I. JANUARY 1796 (Translation: Colombo, January 1st, 1796.) |
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| Comments |
Ceylon's paper money in 1796 occupies an odd administrative seam: the Dutch East India Company had effectively collapsed, and Britain took formal control of the island's coastal territories from the Dutch that same year under the terms of the broader Napoleonic-era European realignments. Notes from this transitional moment were issued under a joint or residual authority — the VOC machinery still nominally functioning while British administrators stepped in. The result was a currency that belonged fully to neither regime.
Local government press production in Colombo meant these were hand-signed, often serially numbered by hand, and subject to considerable variation between individual examples. Paper quality and ink absorption from the Colombo press were inconsistent, and foxing is a known chronic problem with surviving specimens.