Catalog
20 Kurush
| Issuer | Ottoman Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 1854 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed entirely in black on cream paper and enclosed within an ornate floral and foliate border. At the upper centre, a radiant sunburst vignette surrounds an oval reserve, below which the denomination numeral '20' is rendered in large Ottoman calligraphic script. Multiple lines of Ottoman Turkish text in naskh and thuluth scripts carry the legal tender declaration and denomination legend, with a circular official tughra seal at the lower centre. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is largely plain on cream paper, with a ghostly impression of the sunburst vignette from the obverse visible as a see-through element near the upper portion. At the centre, a single bold circular seal in black ink, bearing dense Ottoman calligraphic inscription, serves as the principal design element against the otherwise unprinted surface. |
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The 1854 Ottoman issue was part of the Kaime series — emergency paper currency introduced in the early 1840s to finance state deficits when silver reserves were depleted. By 1854, the empire was also deep into the Crimean War, which had forced the Porte to take its first foreign loans from British and French banks. These notes were, in the bluntest sense, instruments of fiscal desperation.
The Kaime were chronically distrusted by the Ottoman public, trading at heavy discounts against metallic coin throughout their circulation life. By the late 1850s some issues had lost more than half their face value in open exchange.