Catalog
5 Livres
| Issuer | Banque Impériale Ottomane |
|---|---|
| Year | 1882 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Livres |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | دولت عليه عثمانيه بنك امپریال عثمانی Remboursable à Constantinople. CINQ TURQUES LIVRES TURQUES ٥ |
| Reverse description | The reverse presents a simplified mirror-like layout of the obverse design, printed in lighter tones serving as a security underprint. The tughra appears at upper centre, with overlapping guilloche rosettes in red and green at centre, surrounded by Arabic inscriptions. Denomination text in French 'LIVRES TURQUES / 5 / LIVRES TURQUES' appears vertically at right, and two facsimile signatures are visible across the lower portion. The text 'Remboursable à Constantinople.' appears at bottom centre, reading in reverse orientation. |
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| Comments |
The Banque Impériale Ottomane — jointly owned by French and British capital and chartered in 1863 — held the exclusive right to issue banknotes in the Ottoman Empire, a privilege that made it deeply controversial throughout its existence. The 1882 date places this note early in the bank's consolidated note-issuing period, following the Ottoman state's catastrophic 1875 default and the subsequent Muharrem Decree of 1881, which restructured the empire's foreign debt under European supervision. Banknotes from this institution circulated uneasily alongside a population far more accustomed to metallic coinage.
P#60 is among the scarcer issues of this early series — survivor rates are low, partly because the notes were printed in relatively small quantities and partly because the political instability of the period was not kind to paper holdings.