2½ Piastres

The Dette Publique Ottomane — the Ottoman Public Debt Administration — was a European-controlled financial supervisory body established after the Ottoman default of 1875, giving foreign bondholders direct authority over specific imperial revenue streams. That this institution issued emergency small-denomination currency in 1916 reflects just how badly the regular Ottoman treasury had fractured under wartime strain: the empire was essentially printing money through whatever administrative channel still had functioning infrastructure.

Small fractional notes of this type circulated alongside postage stamp currency and other improvised substitutes, filling a coin shortage that had become acute by the middle of the war.