Lakdiva was called Ceylan by the Dutch, Ceylon by the British colonial powers. It became Sri Lanka in Sinhala language at independence in 1948. In 1956 it used the name ශ්රී ලංකා (Sri Lanka in Sinhala) in the name of the Central Bank, with no English name of the country on the banknote. English reappeared on Banknotes in only 1969. The official name in English was changed to Sri Lanka in 1972 when Lanka became a Republic. Central Bank changed its English country name to Sri Lanka in 1986, when Bradbury Wilkinson was purchased by DeLaRue and started printing Sri Lankan banknotes. Lanka even took the name Shri Lanka for a brief period in 1992 June and 1993 December, but luckily that did not appear on any Banknote and only one NCLT coin.
Lakdiva BankNote website expanded since 2016 with its own subdoamin
has documented over 500 Lankan BankNote Types and other Lankan
Numismatic Paper items with greater than 1500 high resolution images
in about 400 web pages. Motivated by many
reasons
this long term project may take many
years to complete. It is purely an attempt to catalog Lankan heritage
on the web, including as much as I can afford to do so in both money
and time.
This website is attempting to be complete of all Ceylon and Sri
Lanka Notes with dates, the number printed, range of Serial Numbers,
Replacements, Specimens, Essays, but ignoring color trials,
Progressive Proofs, and random errors that I don't find of numismatic
interest.
All known published types have been illustrated and documented
dates Serial Numbers and any other available information. IF you have
a rare type of an issued note or essay not included in this website
please contribute images to kavanr @ gmail.com or
WhatsApp +94712537551
Significant contribution of high resolution images of Ceylon BankNotes
to complete the site will be gratefully acknowledged.
I may mention rarity, but I have not included any market value of any
note. Price is very subjective, in a small Numismatic market like Sri
Lanka, and that is why I don't even attempt to give prices on my
website. I have asked some dealers to help create a price list that I
was willing to host on my website, but none have obliged. The best
resource is to take a look at the price of sold items of that type on
eBay, or major online Auctions like Noonans and Spinks for the more rare item.
However finally, the price of any note is what a seller is
willing to sell and at what the buyer is willing to buy, and how many
buyers who know about the sale are interested in buying at the price
the seller is willing to sell, and how many of that item is available
at that time for sale. Simple Supply and Demand.
Please DON'T ASK about valuation I am just a collector not a dealer.
Book published based on this website was given Honorable
mention
in IBNS Book of the year Award for 2019
This website was the featured
website
on 2020 December 6th in E-sylum a weekly electronic newsletter
distributed from the USA to over 6600 numismatic collectors worldwide.
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If you have any questions on Lankan Coins or Banknotes please send an E-mail to lakdiva_org @ googlegroups.com . This ensures that my reply is archived, and others can search and get an answer without asking same question again. I used to use AllExperts which terminated abruptly after 19 years in 2017 April. Read my former profile at AllExperts.com which is still on archive.org
The Sri Lanka Numismatic Society (SLNS) met every 3rd Sunday of the month (except if that is a Public Holiday) from 2-4 PM at the Board Room of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 86, Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha (Green Path), Colombo 7. (Mahaweli center, near back entrance to Colombo National Museum). Meetings suspended since 2020 March because of COVID-19. Met a few months online at same time on GoogleMeet. Now chats on WhatsApp. If you are interested in Coins and Banknotes of Lanka/Ceylon, you are welcome to join. Please introduce yourself with name, location and collecting interests with WhatsApp message to +94712537551.
For description of the early paper money system in Lanka please read
overview.
For the recent value of Lanka Rupee look at
depreciation.
If you travel in Lanka, I recommend you visit
Museums with
Lankan BankNotes and Coins.
Database : Online
Catalog for Lankan Bank Notes since 1785.
Current Definitive Currency Notes - Completed Series in 2023 May -
- Development, Prosperity and Sri Lanka Dancers
Note Series
Latest being issued since 2023 Oct dated 2022-07-04
with signatures of current Finance Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe and Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe.
All current denominations ordered from Rs20 to Rs5000 for
Note Series
(Reply to CBSL RTI 0162/2023 dated 2023-07-25)
Latest Commemorative Currency Note - 2018 February 4th -
2018-02-04 Rs 1000 : 70th Anniversary of Independence, Sri Lanka
Note
Discovery : A Historic early Essay
from the 1956 Transition from English to Sinhala.
Collection Topic : Documentation, Conservation, Security and Handling of Banknotes Guide
Project : Including Sinhala and Thamil on this website in Unicode
Resolved : LTTE notes are
Fake
Feature : UV Images of Sri Lanka Banknotes
under Ultra Violet illumination.
New : Specimen : S-Notes 1885-2018
Replacement : *-Notes 1970-2018 by DeLaRue
Latent Image : on notes 1979-2021
Needs Drawing : Watermarks on Lankan Banknotes
 12165-R |
|
Lectures by Dr Kavan Ratnatunga
| Lankan Banknotes from 1785 to Modern given to the National Trust of Sri Lanka on 2019 June 27th (lecture 117), which was recorded and edited to include the PowerPoint and Video is posted on YouTube and Reviewed | 
|
| Banknotes of The Chartered Mercantile Bank, Ceylon Branch 1857-84 YouTube (14 min). | |
| Ceylon Banknotes from 1785 to 1884 given online to the International Bank Note Society on 2021 April 10th, on Webex is posted on YouTube | 
|
| Ceylon Banknotes from 1885 to 1972 given online to the International Bank Note Society on 2022 March 5th, on Zoom is posted on YouTube | 
|
| QEII on Banknotes of Ceylon Sri Lankan Literary Society YouTube (20 min) |
Please Help, Thanks
Calendars on Lankan Bank Notes : CR 2010
Caution on Forged Notes in Sunday Times :
For Information on Lankan Coins Visit
coins.lakdiva.org.lk
Philip Grierson - Prof of Numismatics, University of Cambridge.
If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches
Anonymous
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Bank Notes from Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
Main Note Collection
Numismatics, like some aspects of astronomy and natural history,
remains a branch of learning in which the amateur can still do
valuable work, and it is on the great collecting public, or rather on
that part of which is interested in the subject at a scientific level,
that the progress of numismatic science largely depends.
Sometimes this behaviour could be annoying, but in the current
architecture of website I have often stacked images which a made
visible by clicking on image. So I can't use that same option to
expand images. This is less of an issue when Using full screen mode.
Because of the background composed of a grid of lines images may
show interference fringes which are not real at certain
scales.
If captioned below image to click on image, then
alternate image(s) will be displayed, and clicking will cycle through
these images.
Permission is granted for linking over Internet, distribution in
print form for educational nonprofit purposes and personal use.
Electronic redistribution for nonprofit purposes is permitted,
provided this notice is attached in its entirety and please indicate
the source, with link to the explicit page in
http://notes.lakdiva.org.lk/
from which the image and/or text was taken to enable reader to get
latest version.
Unauthorized, for-profit redistribution is prohibited.
NO permission is granted for commercial use, without
request
ed and authorized approval.
NEVER USE CONTENT OR LINK TO ANY PAGE OF THIS WEB SITE FROM ANY INTERNET AUCTION
Read and use the information as you need but please DONOT COPY, any webpage into an Auction Listing
© 1998-2014 lakdiva.org
The owner of the copyright allows use of any lakdiva.org BankNote images in the
Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 lisence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
As long as a link is made back to the original source webpage of image at
http://notes.lakdiva.org.lk
Many images of this website will be loaded into Colnect.com BankNote pages for
Ceylon and
Sri Lanka.
This website since 2006 July is hosted by
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