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10 Livres
| Issuer | Imperial Ottoman Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916 |
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| Printer | Bundesdruckerei (Reichsdruckerei), Berlin, Germany (1879-date) |
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| Obverse description | The face is dominated by an elaborate geometric guilloche border with interlocking star and arabesque ornamental frames in brown and olive tones. The imperial toughra appears at upper centre within a circular vignette, flanked by the Arabic inscription of the issuer and date in Ottoman script. The denomination numeral '10' appears in large Western and Arabic-script figures at left and right within star-shaped cartouches, with two green rosette underprint medallions at lower centre bearing the value in Arabic numerals. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The back is printed in olive-green tones with a broad multi-line Ottoman Turkish text in Arabic script occupying a large central cartouche, setting out the legal tender and redemption conditions of the note. Two ornate circular medallions bearing calligraphic inscriptions are positioned at left and right within the decorative arabesque border. The denomination '10' appears in both Western and Arabic numerals at lower left and lower right, with a facsimile signature line at centre. |
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| Comments |
The Imperial Ottoman Bank — a Franco-British joint venture that held the Ottoman Empire's central banking concession — found itself in an impossible position after 1914. With its French and British shareholders now enemy nationals, the bank's operations were severely curtailed. The Ottoman government turned instead to German institutional support, and German printing infrastructure followed: this note was produced by the Reichsdruckerei in Berlin, a direct consequence of the wartime alliance cemented by the 1914 German-Ottoman pact.
By 1916 the empire was hemorrhaging currency stability. Notes like this one circulated alongside issues from the Ottoman Public Debt Administration and government-backed kaime, in a monetary environment of compounding distrust. The Reichsdruckerei imprint is visible in the engraving quality — sharper intaglio work than the domestic Ottoman presswork of the same period.