Catalog
5 Piastres
| Issuer | Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Düyun-u Umumiye) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1914 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed in green on light blue paper, the obverse is dominated by an elaborate guilloche border of medallion form enclosing the principal Arabic inscriptions, with the imperial toughra of Sultan Mehmed V at upper centre. Denomination numerals '5' appear in ornamental cartouches at upper left and lower right corners, with bilingual '5 PIASTRES' and '٥ غروش' inscriptions. Series and serial number are printed in Latin script below the central text panel, accompanied by a single manuscript signature. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse, printed on plain light blue-grey paper, shows the ghost impression of the obverse design visible through the thin note paper, with no distinct printed design elements of its own — consistent with the simple single-sided or lightly backed printing characteristic of this wartime emergency issue. |
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| Comments |
The Düyun-u Umumiye — the Ottoman Public Debt Administration — was itself a creature of foreign financial control, established in 1881 after the Ottoman state defaulted on its sovereign debt. By 1914, it functioned as a semi-autonomous body answerable to European creditor nations, which makes its role as a note-issuing authority genuinely anomalous: these are effectively paper instruments of a debt-collection agency, not a central bank.
The timing matters. Issued in the opening months of World War One, P#96 appeared as the regular Ottoman treasury struggled with wartime liquidity. Small-denomination fractional notes like this one filled an acute gap in everyday transactional currency as silver coinage disappeared from circulation almost immediately after mobilization.