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5 Rupees
| Issuer | Government of India |
|---|---|
| Year | 1908 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Cotton paper |
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| Obverse description | Vertical-format note with 'GOVERNMENT OF INDIA' in bold letterpress across the top within an ornate guilloche border. A large red numeral '5' dominates the centre, flanked by multilingual denomination panels in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Gujarati scripts. The promise-to-pay clause is inscribed in script lettering above the central vignette, with serial numbers and date printed in the lower field. |
|---|---|
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| Variants | P#A4 - 01.09.1914. Signature: Gubbay. Place of issue code letter R (Rangoon) |
| Comments |
The Government of India's early rupee notes were issued under the authority of the Paper Currency Act of 1861, which centralized note issuance away from the presidency banks. By 1908, the series had settled into a relatively stable production rhythm, but these pre-WWI issues remain genuinely scarce — the colonial administration's distribution network was patchy, literacy was low, and much of the rural economy ran on coin. Notes came back to treasuries damaged or simply didn't come back at all.
Pick lists this as P#A4, reflecting incomplete documentation. Surviving specimens are rarely encountered outside institutional collections.