Sri Lanka Political hand Bills and Fantasy notes

Political hand bills during elections and fantasy notes are printed both for marketing and in few cases in commemoration of an event. They are printed to look like a currency note so that they have a better chance of being saved rather than been thrown away. Anyway very few seem to have survived except in the hands of few collectors who tend to keep anything interesting.

The first notes were shown to me by Priyadarshan who found two notes with year B.E. 2013 (1970 CE). Some time later Harry Gunawardena auctioned at a SLNS meeting six Fantasy notes from the late 1980's. In 2017 February Fred Medis auctioned eight which had Five older notes including the Fantasy Note printed for the Inauguration of J. R. Jayawardena as President, which had been reported in World Coin News back in April 1978. The collection now looked interesting to put online.

In addition I have some examples of fantasy notes used for marketing, and by minor political candidates at various elections. Both used for Direct Advertising are less interesting and does not justify attention here.

The first set of HandBills reflect the Sinhala Buddhist Culture introduced with the 1956 (2500 BE) Sinhala Act of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike of SLFP.

Oldest known to me
1963 2506 BE SamBuddha Jayanthi Bank Bill with SWRDB

A set of HandBills issued in the name of Sri SangaBodhi Bank for the Ceylon General Elections held in 1960, 1965 and 1970, reflected by the Buddhist Era (B.E.) Years 2505, 2508 and 2513 which appear on these hand bills.

Issued by Thowfeek Stores Colombo. Currently the Thowfeek Stores, who are Glass Merchants, had no knowledge of these notes and may have changed hands and/or business. Need some archival research.

The Second set of Notes were drawn with designs like the contemporary currency notes with Signature of H. A. S. Perera as Publisher. They had dates and Pseudo Serial Numbers.

Other Unassociated Sri Lanka Fantasy notes

There are a number of recent notes where candidates for elections have printed modified BankNotes with their portrait and election logo and number. Although I have few of them, I have decided to not include them in this website since they are just handbills.

If you have any notes not shown on these pages please let me know kavanr @ gmail.com and if possible contribute a 300 dpi image scans of both sides.
Please correct any errors in my Sinhala Translation of text on these notes.

The oldest notes like this from USA date at least back to the early 1930's depresion. I have notes issued in the early 1970's for President Nixon. In the 1990's many more Parody notes were issued with some good original humor. When they became a popular collectors items in the 2000's there were Hundreds of types mass produced and collectors lost interest in them.