The yüzlük — literally "hundredth" — was introduced as part of Mahmud II's sweeping monetary reforms of the early 1830s, an attempt to stabilize an Ottoman currency system that had been debased so aggressively over the preceding decades that public confidence in coinage had largely collapsed. Mahmud had already dismantled the Janissaries in 1826, and the monetary overhaul that followed was cut from the same cloth: a centralized reassertion of state authority over institutions that had drifted into dysfunction.
At .170 fine, this piece sits at the lower edge of what can reasonably be called silver coinage.
The yüzlük — literally "hundredth" — was introduced as part of Mahmud II's sweeping monetary reforms of the early 1830s, an attempt to stabilize an Ottoman currency system that had been debased so aggressively over the preceding decades that public confidence in coinage had largely collapsed. Mahmud had already dismantled the Janissaries in 1826, and the monetary overhaul that followed was cut from the same cloth: a centralized reassertion of state authority over institutions that had drifted into dysfunction.
At .170 fine, this piece sits at the lower edge of what can reasonably be called silver coinage.