India P-94/P-100/P-107 1000 Rupees 2000-2016 VF—Gandhi

India's highest-denomination note before the 2016 demonetization — the 1000 Rupee bill featuring Mahatma Gandhi, issued across three distinct generations from 2000 to 2016. On the night of November 8, 2016, every one of these notes became worthless paper by government decree. You will receive one note from this family; the exact variety (P-94, P-100, or P-107) will vary.

Front

• Colors: pale orange, grey, and tan underprint; black, dark grey, and maroon engraving; red and black serial numbers (P-107); red serial numbers (P-94/P-100)
• Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi at right
• RBI coat of arms at bottom-right corner (P-100/P-107)
• Lion Capital of the Ashoka Column at lower right (now in Sarnath Museum) — P-100/P-107
• Denomination "1000" in colour-shifting ink (shifts between two shades of green and turquoise) — P-107
• Latent image of "1000" in maroon space beside Gandhi's portrait — visible when tilted — P-107
• Security thread windowed into six sections; inscription "RBI भारत" repeated throughout when backlit; multicolour thread shifts between emerald green, turquoise, and blue — P-107
• New Rupee Symbol "₹" preceding denomination numerals — P-107 only (from January 2012)
• Signatures:
  • P-94: Bimal Jalan (BJ) and Yaga Venugopal Reddy (YVR) — Gov., Reserve Bank of India
  • P-100: Yaga Venugopal Reddy (YVR) and Duvvuri Subbarao (DS) — Gov., Reserve Bank of India
  • P-107: Duvvuri Subbarao (DS) and Raghuram G. Rajan (RGR) — Gov., Reserve Bank of India

Back

• Colors (P-94): no date on reverse; simpler design with multilingual denomination panel only
• Colors (P-100/P-107): dark brown on multishade orange, grey, and tan underprint; date printed at center bottom of reverse
• Symbolic representation of India's economic ambitions: wheat plants (agriculture), a person at a computer (IT), a satellite (space exploration), a factory (metallurgy/manufacturing), and an oil rig at sea (petroleum)
• New Rupee Symbol "₹" preceding denomination numerals — P-107 only
• Denomination panel in 15 Indian languages (excluding Hindi and English): Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu
• Watermark: Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi; electrotype denomination 1000; abbreviation "RBI" in vertical format; "1K" inside a circle and large numeral 1000 (P-107)

Other Characteristics

• Varieties: you may receive any variety:
  • P-94 (2000–2002) — No date on reverse, no ₹ symbol
  • P-100 (2005–2012) — Date on reverse, no ₹ symbol
  • P-107 (2011–2016) — Date on reverse, with ₹ symbol
• Catalog numbers: Pick P-94 / P-100 / P-107; TBB B297 (P-107); Numista N#213473 / N#228557 / N#202272
• Watermark: Mahatma Gandhi portrait; electrotype 1000; "RBI" vertical; "1K" in circle (P-107)
• Composition: Cotton paper
• Size: 177 × 73 mm
• Issuing entity: Reserve Bank of India (भारतीय रिज़र्व बैंक)
• Printer: Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India
• Demonetized: 8 November 2016
• Currency: Indian Rupee (decimalized, 1957–date)

India's Vision on a Banknote

The reverse of the 1000 Rupee note tells a story that the Dandi March note does not: the story of modern India's ambitions. Where the 500 Rupee looked backward to Gandhi's moral courage, the 1000 Rupee looked forward — to green fields fed by irrigation, to satellites launched from Sriharikota, to offshore oil rigs in the Arabian Sea, to the IT revolution that made Bangalore the Silicon Valley of Asia. These five panels — agriculture, computing, space, industry, petroleum — were India's declaration that it intended to be a 21st-century economic power. The note was printed from 2000 to 2016, the exact years India went from a $500 billion economy to a $2.3 trillion one.

Raghuram G. Rajan — whose signature appears on the final P-107 issues — was one of the few economists to publicly warn of the 2008 global financial crisis before it happened, at a Jackson Hole conference in 2005, and was largely dismissed. He later became Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (2013–2016) and is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant central bankers of his generation. His name on this note is a collector's bonus.

The Night India's Money Died

At 8:15 PM on 8 November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared on national television and announced that, effective midnight, all ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes were no longer legal tender. 86% of India's currency by value — including every single one of these 1000 Rupee notes — was invalidated in a single speech. Lines formed at banks stretching for blocks. ATMs ran dry within hours. The move — intended to combat black money, counterfeiting, and tax evasion — caused enormous disruption and remains one of the most dramatic monetary events of the 21st century. The 1000 Rupee note was never reissued. These are the last of their kind.

About India

• Origin of name: Derived from the Indus River (Sanskrit: Sindhu), via Persian Hindu and Greek Indos; the name has been in use for over 2,500 years
  • Origin of name of New Delhi: "Delhi" likely derives from the Hindi/Prakrit word dhili (loose), referring to the iron pillar of Qutb, or from Raja Dhilu (50 BC); "New" was added when the British built the planned capital in 1911
• Capital: New Delhi — city pop. ~250,000; metro pop. ~33 million (NCT of Delhi)
• Population: ~1.44 billion (UN 2024) — roughly 4× the United States
• Area: 3,287,263 km² (1,269,219 mi²) — slightly larger than Argentina; about one-third the size of the United States
• GDP per capita (PPP): ~$10,100 (IMF 2024)
• Main exports: petroleum products, gems and jewelry, pharmaceuticals, machinery, textiles, rice
• Borders: Pakistan (west), China and Nepal (north), Bhutan (northeast), Bangladesh and Myanmar (east); coastlines on the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal
• Official/spoken languages: Hindi and English (official); 22 scheduled languages; hundreds of regional languages and dialects
• Ethnicities: Indo-Aryan (~72%), Dravidian (~25%), Austroasiatic and others (~3%)
• Memberships: United Nations (founding member, 1945); Commonwealth of Nations (1947); Non-Aligned Movement (founding member, 1961); G20 (hosted 2023 presidency); BRICS; World Trade Organization; South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC, founding member)
• Sovereignty: Mughal Empire (1526–1857); British East India Company rule (1757–1858); British Raj (1858–1947); Independence: 15 August 1947; Republic: 26 January 1950

India Unfiltered

• India has the world's largest democracy — over 960 million eligible voters cast ballots in the 2024 general election, the largest democratic exercise in human history.
• Zero was invented here. The concept of zero as a number was formalized by Indian mathematician Brahmagupta in 628 AD — arguably the most consequential mathematical discovery ever made.
• India has more languages than Europe. The 2011 census recorded 19,500 distinct mother tongues. The constitution recognizes 22 official languages.
• The Kumbh Mela is the largest human gathering on Earth — up to 50 million people in a single day. It is visible from space.
• India's film industry produces more films than any other country — over 1,800 per year across multiple language industries, of which Bollywood (Hindi) is just one.
• Yoga, chess, and the decimal number system all originated in India.
• India became the fourth country to land on the Moon when Chandrayaan-3 touched down near the lunar south pole on 23 August 2023 — the first mission ever to land there.
• The 1000 Rupee note was never replaced. After demonetization, the government issued a new ₹2,000 note and redesigned ₹500 — but the ₹1,000 denomination was quietly retired. This note is the end of a lineage.

Own the note that India killed — the highest denomination of the world's most populous nation, bearing the face of its greatest moral leader, struck down overnight by a prime minister's speech. The 1000 Rupee note is gone forever. This is your chance to hold one.