Catalog
| Issuer | Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankası (Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1997 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 500 000 Lira (500 000 TRL) |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Watermark |
| Protection description | Watermark portrait of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
By 1997, Turkish inflation had been running above 70% annually for most of the decade, and the 500,000 Lira note was itself a symptom — a denomination that would have been unthinkable in the 1970s, when the largest note in circulation was 1,000 Lira. The Central Bank's own printing facility in Ankara had been producing successively larger denominations throughout the 1990s at a pace that kept the presses continuously occupied.
This series carried only a basic watermark as its primary security feature — a reflection of how quickly inflation outpaced the economics of investing in sophisticated anti-counterfeiting measures for notes whose real value eroded within months of printing. The 500,000 Lira denomination was eventually made obsolete by the 2005 redenomination, which struck six zeros from the currency and introduced the New Turkish Lira.