1937 overprinted Indian banknotes

Denomination (Rupee) Red Overprint Black Overprint
5 P.1a observe P.1b observe
10 P.2a observe P.2b observe
100 P.3a observe P.3b observe
1000 P.UL observe

In 1937, “legal tender in burma only” was overprinted on Indian banknotes. The denominations are 5, 10, 100 and 1000 rupees. Surprisingly from online sources counted, the 10 rupees dominanted within the set, number of the 5 rupees lesser than 10 rupees, the 100 rupees are rare, and the 1000 rupees are more rare. As for 10,000 rupees, I haven’t seen any, I won’t discuss it for the time being.

1937 Banknote Set

Denomination (Rupee) Red overprinted serial number Black overprinted serial number red overprint found black overprint found Total number found Number of counterfeit found
5 T18-T22 S88-90 22 20 44 3
10 R82-89 R42-49 55 68 123 5
100 T41, T47 T32 12 9 1 21 0
1000 X6 - 6 - 6 0

According to “Indian Paper Money”, the main catalogue of Indian paper money, Jhunjhunwalla & Razack recorded the serial numbers of P.1b as S88 000001 to S88 200000, S89 and S90 in the book.
The problem occurred with the S88 serial number. In 2014, I found that the serial number of the P.1b banknote was greater than the S88 200000. I raised a question on this issue in Razack’s blog post. Razack’s answer at that time was based on the Nasik file. I revise the post at later time, my message has missed, and the serial number of P.1b in the blog post has also been changed to S88 200001 to S88 1000000, S89 and S90.
However, when I wrote this article, I found that the serial number of some P.1b banknotes in my database was smaller than S88 200001. That is to say, there are P.1b with serial numbers larger and smaller than S88 200000 on the Internet. It seems that the serial number of P.1b needs to be further studied. It is safer to list its serial number as S88-90 for the time being.

Many counterfeit banknotes of P.1 are fake overprinted on the real Indian P.15b, and it is easy to find out as long as you pay attention to the serial number. The same is true for P.2, adding a fake overprint on the real Indian P.16b.

Precautions:

  • In the book “The Coins and Banknotes of Burma”, the author mentioned witness the essay of 1000 and 10000 rupees. Whether the 10,000 rupee has notes in circulation is still to be studied.
  • In the article of ‘Indian Paper Money", it is mentioned that the 100 rupees black overprint has serial number of T41, which is not found in my database for the time of this writing.

  1. 6 of them are only ¼ banknotes ↩︎