500 Lira

Turkey's earliest post-Ottoman paper currency series was issued under considerable political pressure to assert the new republic's financial independence from foreign-controlled banking arrangements that had dominated the late Ottoman period. The Central Bank itself wasn't formally established until 1930, meaning this 1927 note was technically issued under transitional monetary authority — a detail the catalog reference alone won't clarify.

De La Rue's involvement was pragmatic: the young republic lacked domestic intaglio capacity and contracted London for quality and security. The 500 Lira denomination was the highest in this series, putting it well outside everyday commerce — these moved between institutions, not hands.