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5 Rupees Kandy; Oriental Bank Corporation
| Issuer | Oriental Bank Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1881 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on pink underprint; allegorical enthroned female figure with lions at left, bust of Mercury holding caduceus at right, and British coat of arms at upper centre. Bilingual value inscriptions in Sinhala and Tamil appear below the central text block. Printer's imprint at lower margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | 5 FIVE රුපියල් පහයි ஐந்து ரூபாய் (Translation: Five rupees.) |
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| Comments |
The Oriental Bank Corporation, chartered in London with headquarters in Bombay, issued notes across a sprawling network that stretched from Ceylon to Hong Kong to Mauritius. The Kandy branch notes represent the bank's upcountry operations in Ceylon — Kandy had been the center of the last independent Kandyan kingdom and remained commercially significant long after British annexation in 1815, particularly in relation to the coffee and, later, tea trade.
The bank collapsed in 1884, just three years after this note's issue date, following a series of catastrophic losses tied to the collapse of Ceylon's coffee industry after a devastating outbreak of coffee leaf rust. Notes from the final years of issue are genuinely uncommon survivors.