Inset Listing

Inset means: a thing that is put in or inserted. Here in Paper Money, Inset is an Alphabet - Capital Letter that is placed generally in the Serial Number Panel and behind the serial numbers with a light or white color Ink to have a visual contrast from the black ink printed Prefix Letter and Serial Number.

In Indian Paper Currency, right from British India era the Inset concept was introduced to give different issues and identity and later this Inset concept was modified in year 2005, where all four RBI presses were allocated different Inset Letters reversed for their classification and origin of various issues printed by them in all denominations, in different design, year and under different Governor's signature.

Introduction to first Inset was done in One Rupee George VI in 1940 printed notes signed by C E Jones with A Inset letter, highlighted in Red.

Intaglio printing is one of the most important stages of printing. Covered inks are applied to grooves of printing plates. Both the front and back of the note are printed. Ink is applied to the paper under enormous pressure and high temperature, creating a relief structure that can be felt when touching the note. Here some advance laser printing is done to print some more security features. Also, the Inset Letter is applied during the intaglio print on the obverse side and the Year of issue on the reverse side.

After 2005, the specific Inset Letter on Notes are printed based on their Press Location. There are four different currency press that prints notes for the Reserve Bank of India . Each of the four currency press are allotted a separate set of inset letters for their internal identification purposes.

Location Inset Letters

Mysore Press: Plain (No Inset), A, B, C, D
Dewas Press: E, F, G, H, K
Nashik Press: L, M, N, P, Q
Salboni Press: R, S, T, U, V

Only 20 alphabets are used as insets. The alphabets that are excluded are I, J, O, X, Y, Z.

Note: Of the permitted 20 Alphabets for Insets, Letter K is never used by any press across all denominations.

Classification of Paper Currency and Assigning Issue Code

In classification of Paper Currency under each denominations and issuing them the Codes for its easy and standard reference across Notaphily fraternity, the best method was adapted as below:

Classify first by Printing Authority and Time - e.g. British India, Portuguese India, Republic India etc.
Next Classify it by Denomination.
Next Classify it by Year of Issue.
Next Classify it by Design (Often few denominations have multiple designs in same Year, under same Governor or Signatory).
Next Classify it by Governor / Finance Secretary or other Signatory.
Next Classify it by Inset. Here authors have exercised to provide an Issue Code for standard reference across the Notaphily fraternity and one may easily recognize by means of Issue code to understand its context.
Each Insets / Issues can be classified further by various Prefix letters printed within it.
Each Prefix letter(s) will have associated Prefix Number (ranging from 0 to 99 in denominations of ₹1, ₹2, ₹5, ₹10, ₹20 and 0 to 9 in higher denominations).

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