10 000 000 Lira TRT Radios

Turkey's 2002 commemorative for TRT — the state broadcaster founded in 1964 — arrived at an awkward historical moment. The country was in the tail end of a catastrophic economic collapse: the 2001 financial crisis had wiped out roughly 40% of the lira's value practically overnight, forcing the government to float the currency and accept an IMF rescue package. Issuing a 10,000,000 lira face value coin was not hyperbole; it was arithmetic.

TRT's radio services had by this point been broadcasting for nearly four decades, though the monopoly on television was broken only in 1990 when private channels were legalized.