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5 Rupees
| Issuer | Oriental Bank Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1873 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black letterpress and intaglio print on plain paper with a guilloche border frame. The Royal Arms vignette is centred at top, flanked by two circular denomination cartouches inscribed FIVE RUPEES with Sinhala and Tamil legends above. The promise-to-pay text block is set within a decorative panel below the issuer's name. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Reverse is blank, showing only the offset impression of the obverse printing visible through the paper. |
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| Comments |
The Oriental Bank Corporation, chartered in London and operating primarily across British colonial Asia, collapsed spectacularly in 1884 — making any surviving paper from the 1870s genuinely uncommon. The bank had overextended itself through bad agricultural loans in Ceylon and poor exposure to the Indian indigo trade, and the failure wiped out shareholders entirely.
Perkins, Bacon & Petch produced the plates using their characteristic steel-engraving method, the same technology that underpinned many colonial currency issues of the period. Notes of this series circulated across multiple Asian branches simultaneously, with manuscript branch notations distinguishing one paying office from another.