100 Kuruş

The Banque Impériale Ottomane's small-denomination paper issues of the mid-1870s emerged from a genuine fiscal emergency. The Ottoman state had defaulted on its external debt in October 1875, and the government's reliance on kaimé — state-issued paper money of notoriously poor repute — had so eroded public confidence that even small transactions in paper were treated with suspicion. These notes were part of a broader attempt to reintroduce credible paper at the lower end of the market, backed by the prestige of the Anglo-French bank rather than the treasury.

The sole security feature being an official stamp tells you something about both the printing technology available and the trust model in use — authentication by mark rather than by engraving complexity.