500 Kurus - Mehmed V Constantinople

Mehmed V was a constitutional monarch in the strictest sense — restored to the throne by the Young Turk revolution of 1908, he held little independent authority, with the Committee of Union and Progress directing policy throughout his reign. The 500 Kuruş was the empire's highest denomination gold coin, struck at the Istanbul mint during a period when the Ottoman treasury was chronically strained by the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, which stripped the empire of most of its remaining European territory.

The accession year governs the regnal dating on these pieces; the mint mark tughra distinguishes Constantinople strikes from provincial issues.