500 Rupees

Bank of Madras, India,*TOP POP* 500 Rupees, March 1844, serial number 3352,The Bank of Madras was formally established on the 1st of July 1843, through the amalgamation of four earlier banks operating in the Madras Presidency, the Madras Bank (founded 1683), the Carnatic Bank (1788), the British Bank of Madras (1795), and the Asiatic Bank (1804). Headquartered in Madras (now Chennai), the bank functioned as one of the three great Presidency Banks.Notes of the Bank of Madras are among the rarest survivors of the Indian Presidency banking era. Several factors explain this extreme scarcity: limited issue quantities, the natural attrition of paper currency in tropical climates, and the withdrawal and destruction of obsolete notes. The survival rate of genuine issued notes is thus exceedingly low.From a collector’s perspective, a note such as this stands as a tangible witness to the dawn of Indian banking. Its grand design, multilingual inscriptions, and powerful symbolism epitomise the era when Presidency Banks represented the highest authority in regional finance. Today, this 500 Rupees note not only embodies the economic might of its time but also the artistic and cultural fusion that characterised the British Indian banking system in the mid-nineteenth century.According to PMG Census, only two examples have been certified to date. Moreover, this is the note that holds the highest grade assigned, making it one of the most special notes.In every respect historical, aesthetic, and numismatic, it represents one of the greatest rarities of the Presidency Bank series and a cornerstone piece in any collection of early Indian paper money.(Pick S145),in PMG holder 15 NET Choice Fine, cancelled, restoration, the single finest graded on PMG censusSubject to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium. For more information please view Terms and Conditions for Buyers.