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5 Livres Turques
| Issuer | Dette Publique Ottomane |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Livres Turques |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | بش ليره 5 |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Watermark |
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| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Dette Publique Ottomane — the Ottoman Public Debt Administration — was not a Turkish institution in any ordinary sense. Established by European creditors in 1881 after the empire defaulted on its foreign loans, it functioned as a state-within-a-state, collecting specific tax revenues directly on behalf of bondholders in Paris, London, and Vienna. That this body was still issuing paper currency as late as 1918, with the empire collapsing and Allied forces closing in, is the detail that makes the series historically arresting.
By the final year of the war, severe coin shortages had forced emergency paper into denominations that would normally never exist as banknotes. The OPDA's wartime issues were effectively a fiscal stopgap for a government that had long since lost control of its own monetary apparatus.