Recently I bought this because I like the old Indian notes with the pictures of the coins on them, but it was only when I got home that I found out what it really was. This note is red instead of purple, and the serial number begins with "Z", indicating that it's a "Gulf rupee", issued for use in what is now Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman (the "Gulf states" located on the Persian Gulf, or is it called the Arabian Gulf?). Basically, the British made the British Indian Rupee legal tender all throughout their colonies in South and West Asia. They even tried to promote the use of Rupees in East Africa (although these countries eventually ended up using shillings instead). To this day, the Seychelles and Mauritius both have currencies called "rupee", despite their geographic separation from the Indian subcontinent.
After India became independent, the Indian rupee was still being used by these countries in the Gulf. But, because of smuggling, this foreign use put a serious strain on the Republic of India's gold reserves. Indian rupees would leave the country, and be converted to gold in the Gulf States. This was a clever way of circumventing laws against the importation and exportation of Indian gold. So the decision was made to create a special, separate currency that would be equivalent to the Indian rupee, but would be made for use only outside of India proper. This was the "Gulf rupee". Gulf rupee banknotes were coloured differently than their Indian equivalents, and their redeemability was changed so that they were only redeemable at the main branch of the RBI. They are also a lot more scarce and valuable, compared to your average Indian rupees! This was a very pleasant surprise when I looked it up - rather than being worth about $2, this note is worth more like $200. Because the only difference is the colour, and the Standard Catalogue of World Paper Money is printed in black and white, this one must have just slipped through the cracks. I'm still blown away by this accidental find.
For comparison, here's a "normal" rupee note from the same period (although this one is 6 years newer, so it has some slight differences), demonstrating the "standard" colour scheme of purple with multicoloured detail.
Posted 03/15/2015 5:37 pm
