Catalog
100 Livres
| Issuer | Imperial Ottoman Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 100 Livres |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The toughra of Sultan Mehmed V appears at upper centre within an ornate geometric border of interlaced guilloche and arabesque patterns in olive-brown and red. A large central text panel carries the denomination and official Ottoman inscriptions in Arabic script, with the numeral 100 repeated at left and right margins. The serial number appears vertically at left and in red ink at right, with a small circular seal at centre below the main text block. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | دولت عثمانيه |
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| Comments |
The Imperial Ottoman Bank's wartime note issues were printed in Germany from 1915 onward as a direct consequence of the Allied naval blockade cutting off the Bank's normal access to its French printing contractor, Imprimerie Nationale. The Reichsdruckerei relationship was a wartime necessity, not a commercial preference — the Bank had been a Franco-British institution by charter since 1863, and sourcing its currency production from a German imperial press was an arrangement that would have been unthinkable twelve months earlier.
The 1917 series, of which this 100 Livres is part, circulated through the final turbulent years of the Ottoman Empire's existence as a functioning state. Rampant inflation made high-denomination notes like this one increasingly common and increasingly worthless in short succession.