Catalog
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| Issuer | Imperial Ottoman Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | دولت علية عثمانية |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in a single olive-green tone on plain paper, with the denomination numeral '50' at upper left and a mirror-image Arabic numeral at upper right. Multiple lines of Ottoman Turkish text in naskh script fill the central area, setting out the note's legal tender provisions. A 'LIVRES TURQUES' circular seal appears at lower left, a smaller circular seal at lower right, and a manuscript signature is placed below the main text block. |
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| Comments |
The Imperial Ottoman Bank — nominally a Franco-British joint venture headquartered in Constantinople — continued issuing currency well into the First World War despite the Ottoman Empire being at war with both France and Britain. The 1916 series, of which this 50 Livres is part, was issued under wartime financial pressure, with the bank increasingly subordinated to the needs of the Committee of Union and Progress government.
Wartime inflation hit Ottoman paper hard. By 1918 the lira had lost the majority of its pre-war value, and much of this series was redeemed or destroyed following the Armistice. High-denomination survivor notes from 1916 are correspondingly scarcer than their lower-value counterparts from the same run.