20 000 Lira Purple ornament

By 1995, Turkey's chronic inflation had pushed the 20,000 Lira note into near-irrelevance for everyday transactions — a denomination that had seemed substantial at issue was, within a few years, worth less than a single U.S. cent. The Central Bank's own Banknot Matbaası facility in Ankara had been printing successive high-denomination notes faster than the public could adjust to them.

This note belongs to a series that would eventually be superseded by the redenomination of 2005, when six zeros were stripped from the currency and the Yeni Türk Lirası replaced the old Lira entirely.