10 Lira

Turkey's Central Bank was only established in 1930, and this 1938 issue belongs to the earliest phase of the republic's effort to build credible paper currency infrastructure — a process that depended heavily on De La Rue's technical capability at a time when no domestic printing facility existed that could produce secure banknotes. The reliance on London was a matter of necessity, not preference.

1938 is also the year Atatürk died, in November. Notes of this series would have circulated through a period of considerable political transition as İsmet İnönü assumed the presidency and Turkey navigated the opening years of World War Two while maintaining official neutrality.