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5 Rupees
| Issuer | Oriental Bank Corporation, Galle |
|---|---|
| Year | 1866-1880 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Rupee (1869-1972) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | FIVE RUPEES INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER GALLE, CEYLON THE ORIENTAL BANK CORPORATION Promise to pay the Bearer on demand at their Branch here, or at their Bank in Colombo FIVE RUPEES or the equivalent in the Currency of this Island. Value received. By order of the Court of Directors, Accountt Agent |
| Reverse description | No reverse image provided; the reverse of Oriental Bank Corporation notes of this series is understood to be plain or bears only a simple printed border, consistent with private bank issue practice of the period. |
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| Comments |
The Oriental Bank Corporation was a British overseas bank chartered in Bombay in 1842, later headquartered in London, and by the 1860s operating across Ceylon, India, China, and Australia. Its Galle branch issued private banknotes at a time when no government currency authority existed for Ceylon — these were genuinely circulating commercial instruments, not government scrip. The bank collapsed catastrophically in 1884, a failure driven largely by bad loans tied to falling commodity prices across its Asian branch network.
Notes from the Galle branch are rare precisely because the failure triggered immediate recall and destruction of outstanding paper. Survivors almost certainly escaped redemption through loss, hoarding, or abandonment in the chaos following the bank's closure.