2 Medjidies d'Or

The Banque Impériale Ottomane was established by Anglo-French capital in 1863 — the same year this note was issued — and immediately granted the exclusive right to issue banknotes across Ottoman territories. It was a foreign-controlled central bank functioning inside a sovereign empire, a structural tension that shadowed the institution for its entire existence.

The medjidieh d'or was a gold-based unit of account rather than a circulating coin denomination, which made paper denominated in it difficult for much of the Ottoman public to value intuitively. Early acceptance of BIO notes outside Istanbul and Smyrna was poor.