5 Pounds

Perkins, Bacon & Petch was among the earliest firms to apply steel-engraved intaglio printing to banknotes at commercial scale — a technique Jacob Perkins had migrated from American banknote work, specifically to combat forgery. Ceylon's colonial administration adopted this printer precisely for that security advantage at a time when the island's currency arrangements were still being consolidated under British governance following the 1815 Kandyan Convention.

The long date range reflects a slow-moving colonial issuing cycle rather than continuous production runs. Individual notes within this series were hand-dated at issue, so examples at either end of the bracket can look nearly identical in format despite being decades apart.