100 Lira İnönü

Turkey's first major post-Atatürk portrait series, this note was issued under İsmet İnönü, who assumed the presidency after Atatürk's death in November 1938 and held it through the entirety of World War II — a period during which Turkey maintained a precarious neutrality while both Axis and Allied powers exerted enormous diplomatic pressure. The decision to put İnönü on the currency was itself a political act, projecting continuity and state authority at a moment of genuine domestic uncertainty.

Thomas De La Rue printed the series in London, which remained an unusual arrangement given wartime shipping risks across the Mediterranean. The single watermark is the primary security feature — a relatively minimal provision for a high denomination.