10 Kurush

The Hazine-i Devlet notes of 1853–54 were issued under acute fiscal pressure — the Crimean War had just begun, and the Ottoman treasury was hemorrhaging silver to military expenditure. These kaime, as they were broadly called, represented an attempt to paper over a coinage shortage that had been worsening since the earlier kaime experiments of the 1840s, when Abdülmecid I first reluctantly authorized paper currency against strong public resistance.

Forgery was an immediate and serious problem with this series. The sole security feature being an official seal made counterfeiting relatively straightforward, and depreciation followed quickly — holders discounted the notes heavily in bazaar transactions almost from the start.