1979 - Sri Lanka - Flora and Fauna
Currency Notes

		Orange	155x76 mm	Rs 100 note
		Blue	146x73 mm	Rs 50 note
		Violet	137x70 mm	Rs 20 note
		Green	127x67 mm	Rs 10 note
		Gray	118x64 mm	Rs 5 note
		Pink	108x60 mm	Rs 2 note

• Followed series of Notes issued in 1977.
• Based on painting by Laki Senanayake on the theme Endemic Flora and Fauna of Sri Lanka. Laki was commisioned in 1976 to do the paintings.
• UV printing on the front followed the format used sincd 1974 August. On the back particularly the Rs 10 and less so the Rs 50 was very detailed and colourful under UV illumination.
• The First Twenty Rupee currency note to be issued, and became a regular denomination in future series.
• The Last Two Rupee currency note to be issued, as it was replaced by the 1984 by a Two Rupee coin.
• Name of Printer Bradbury Wilkinson is not mentioned on this series of Currency Notes.
• The Dash below the Prefix character was much wider than numeric below.
• It may be the only set of notes to have 38 Flora and Fauna identified with Scientific names.
• The species found in each image can all be found in the same climatic zone. This chart gives the bio-zones in which the Flora and Fauna on the notes are found.
• The number of Flora and Fauna identified in each note in Rs 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 is 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, which makes me wonder if one was left out from the front of Rs 50 during banknote design layout.
• The Durability of the note paper was poor and Design was never reused and next series of Notes dated 1982-01-01 was issued in 1983 April.
• One of the most beautiful series of currency notes in the World with high International collector Demand.
• In 2024 December there were 6812 notes of Sri Lanka (since 1972) graded by PMG. Of that 2316 or 34% are from 1979 which reflects special interest of foreign collectors in Laki's notes, relative to any other set of notes that was issued by CBSL for over 50 years.
• An Uncirculated set of the six notes sold in 2021 July on eBay.com in USA for US$630 in comparison to the US$12 facevalue at time of issue (US$=Rs15.50) in 1979.

The notes are featured in the book The Art of Paper Currency by Martin Monestier published in 1983. Four of this series of six notes are illustrated on pages 344-345 has selected the back of the Rs50 for the cover from among the banknotes of 162 countries featured in this Book.

Dates and Signatures on Currency issues.

Minister of Finance	Governor Central Bank of Ceylon
1979-03-26 Ronnie de Mel Warnasena Rasaputram

See essays partly designed by Laki for the 1981 Rs500 and Rs1000 notes of which one was partly used on the lower back of the Rs500 note.

See also 2015 September 29th Spink Auction 175 which mentions a unrecorded 2 Rupee Pattern dated 1 January 1979,

Text edited from book Sri Lanka Currency of Recent Times 1938 - 1985 by Mr. T M U Sallay 1986 CBSL Colombo.
The notes scanned at 300 dpi are displayed above at 25 dpi.