Before charter currency notes were signed by the the Directors. With Royal Charter the currency was signed by the Court of Directors. The notes issued by branches outside Colombo had additional phrase or at Colombo.
Only the value of the note appears in Sinhala and Thamil, the name of Bank is not printed in the local languages, on any of the Charted Mercantile Bank of India, London & China notes.
Until 1870 the bank issued notes denominated in sterling; pursuant to monetary reform in 1869 it then commenced a note issue in rupees. In March 1884 the Mercantile Bank's currency in circulation was Rs 921,000. In 1888 the bank's charter to issue currency was not renewed, and it reconstructed as Mercantile Bank of India on 1893 January 1st.
The Mercantile Bank of India, London & China
(MBILC)
Printed by Batho & Co London, with Britannia Design
1857 : Colombo 5s
note
The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China - Ceylon Branch
Sterling Era : Pounds
1858-1863 Colombo - 10s, £1, £5, £10
1858 : Kandy - 5s
specimen (in English Only)
185x : Kandy - 10s
note
Printed by Perkins Bacon & Petch, London, with Royal Crest Design
1864-1869 Colombo - 10s, £1, £5, £10, £50
notes
1864-1869 Kandy - 10s, £1, £5
notes
Decimal Era : Rupees
1870-1884 Colombo - Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 50, Rs 100, Rs 500, Rs 1000
notes
1870-1884 Kandy - Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 50
notes
1880-1884 Galle - Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 100
notes
The name of the Bank appears only in English.
Note that the value in vernacular Sinhala and Thamil is also given
in Rupees, as the Indian Rupee was the familiar currency in
circulation. One Pound Sterling equaled to Ten Rupees.
Please contact kavan @ gmail.com if I have made errors in
encoding the Thamil in Unicode.
Watermark : CHARTERED MERCANTILE in downward arc
above OF INDIA LONDON & CHINA in upward arc below lighter than
paper and BANK in center
is seen only on 1870 and later Rs
50 and higher Denominations of Kandy and Galle.
None seen on any of the Denominations of Colombo Specimens at HSBC Archive
I thank Claire Twinn, Global Functions Archives Manager, HSBC Holdings
PLC, London for sending me
details
of the watermarks seen on these BankNotes.
Size : As the Notes were probably cut by hand using a
guillotine resulting in slight random difference in margins.
The outer limits of the printed design is a better measure of size,
as that is fixed.
This was measured on a circulated Rs 5 note at the Colombo
National Museum as 6¾x4¼ inches or about 171x108 mm.
With margins which are wider for width than height, the total size of
note of about 7½x4½ inches or about 190x115 mm.
SACPM(1981) does not give sizes.
According to Spink, issued notes for the Chartered Mercantile Bank are exceptionally rare. As the Mercantile continued in existence after the institution of the Ceylon Currency Board in 1885 nearly all of its outstanding circulation was paid either by itself or by the Board.
All notes are exceptionally rare, whether proof, specimen, or issued. The Colombo 5 shilling with the bank's original name prior to receiving it's charter is of exceptional rarity and importance.
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) first established a branch in Colombo, Ceylon in 1892 but did not issue notes. The Mercantile Bank became part of the Hongkong Bank Group in 1959.
According to Joe Cribb the HSBC "Banks Money Collection has a rich array of notes issued for Ceylon by the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China." from the merger. I thank him for introducing me to the HSBC Archive.
In 1961 Government of Ceylon forbade foreign banks to accept deposits from Ceylonese nationals. HSBC sold Mercantile Bank of India's branches in Kandy, Galle and Jaffna to Commercial Bank of Ceylon (CBC) as part of a deal that would remove the government's limit on deposit taking in Mercantile's remaining branches in Colombo and Pettah, which were subsequently acquired by Hatton National Bank (HNB) in 1974.
Images of back of note not printed in Auction listings were printed at
about 24 dpi resolution in the book History of Coins and
Currency in Sri Lanka G. P. S. H. de Silva 2001 Central Bank of
Sri Lanka. The book references the set of monochrome copies displayed
at CBSL Currency Museum which may have been obtained many years ago
from HSBC Archive.
The prints on display at CBSL Museum were photographed through the
reflective glass to get higher resolution images, which needed to be
photoshoped to remove keystone distortion and other issues.
All of these temporary images have now been replaced with scans of the
original Specimens in the HSBC Archives.
I thank Claire Twinn, Global Functions Archives Manager, HSBC Holdings PLC, London for sending me 400 dpi high resolution scans from the HSBC Collection. Two in 2017 November, 14 in in 2020 February, and the last 6 Ceylon banknotes types in 2020 March. They are Reproduced with the permission of HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC Archives) in this website at 200 dpi.
Please DONOT use any of these images for whatever purpose without seeking permission from HSBC Archive, HSBC Group Management Services Limited, Level 41, 8 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HQ, United Kingdom.
Text and few Images from Auction listings, particularly the 2011 April Spink Auction of 19th Century Ceylon Notes. On the day of this Spink Auction, the anonymous owner of collection cancelled it. It listed Uniface Specimen Proofs on card of Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, Ceylon Branch, of Colombo, Kandy and Galle in Shillings, Pounds and from 1870 in Rupees.
Text also from
Money in the Bank, by Joe Cribb, An Illustrated Introduction to the
Money Collection of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation,
Spink & Son Ltd., London, 1987. p 185