1000 Kurush

The 1840 Ottoman paper money issue — kaime-i mutebere-i nakdiye — was introduced under Sultan Mahmud II as an emergency fiscal measure to fund the military after the disastrous war with Egypt's Muhammad Ali. These were not banknotes in any conventional sense: they bore no serial numbers, were handwritten in part, and paid interest at eight percent, functioning more like short-term treasury bonds forced into circulation than currency proper.

The public received them with deep suspicion, and counterfeiting was a problem almost immediately. The absence of mechanical printing and standardized security made the series acutely vulnerable from the start.