50 000 Lira Black and green numeral

By 1989, Turkish inflation had been running above 60% annually for several years, forcing the central bank to issue notes at denominations that would have been unthinkable a decade earlier. The 50,000 Lira note was a direct consequence — the highest denomination in circulation at its introduction, though it would soon be dwarfed by the inflationary spiral of the early 1990s that eventually necessitated the 2005 redenomination, which stripped six zeros from the currency.

Printed entirely in-house at the Ankara banknote printing works, which the central bank has operated since 1955. Watermark security only — no metallic strip — which reflects the production economics of a high-turnover inflationary issue where notes cycled out of circulation quickly enough that sophisticated security was largely redundant.