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Variety Determinants for Pakistani Banknotes

Regional names

The chart below shows the text for the cities of Karachi, Dhaka and Lahore in Bengali and Urdu. These names are used on several issues, determining a number of varieties.

	Bengali	Urdu
Karachi
Dhaka
Lahore

Lines of Urdu text

The notes of the sixth, seventh and eighth series of Pakistani banknotes are determined by the presence or absence of a line of Urdu text on the backs of the notes. The notes of the sixth issue have no line of text; the notes of the seventh issue have 'Line A'; and notes of the eighth issue have 'Line B'. A translation of each line appears in the final column of the chart.

Line A		Legal livelihood is equal to prayer.
Line B		Earning legal livelihood is akin to prayer.

Squashed Serial Number Prefixes

There are two varieties (identified so far) that have a 'squashed' serial number prefix. These varieties occur in:

No. 17 - 50 rupees with Signature G.4

No. 18 - 100 rupees with Signature G.3 (without overprint of a city)

Both these notes occur with the 'squashed' serial number prefix and with the normal prefix. The following illustration shows a serial number with a 'squashed' serial number prefix (top) and a normal serial number prefix (bottom).

TDLR Fonts

The first Pakistani banknotes were printed in the United Kingdom, mostly by Thomas De La Rue and Company (TDLR). The notes printed by TDLR use a different font to that later used by the State Security Printing works. The TDLR font appears again on the 10-rupee note of the fifth series (No.21) as a variety.

Examples of the different fonts are shown below.

The TDLR font
The Pakistani font

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