Catalog
100 Kurush
| Issuer | Ottoman Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 1876 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The toughra of the reigning sultan occupies a cartouche at upper centre, set within an elaborate arabesque border with scrollwork corners. The denomination numerals appear at each corner, and the central field carries multi-line Ottoman script text arranged in formal calligraphic style. A circular imperial seal vignette is placed at lower centre beneath the main text block. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is largely plain with a circular Ottoman imperial seal impressed at upper centre. A bilingual oval registration handstamp of the Banque Impériale Ottomane is applied at lower centre, bearing the registration number and the date 1876, with the text arranged around a central numeral field. Manuscript signatures or notations appear at lower left. |
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| Comments |
This note was issued under Sultan Abdülhamid II during a period of acute fiscal stress — the Ottoman government had suspended payments on its foreign debt in October 1875, just months before this series entered circulation. The Kaime, as Ottoman paper currency was broadly known, had a troubled public reputation going back decades, rooted in inflationary overissues during the Crimean War period and repeated forced acceptance at gunpoint in provincial markets.
The 1876 issues came from the Ottoman Bank printing operations, though the institution's Franco-British ownership gave it an unusual dual role: both creditor to the state and printer of its currency.