20 Kuruş

The Banque Impériale Ottomane issued this note during one of the Ottoman Empire's most acute fiscal crises — the years surrounding the 1876 state bankruptcy declaration, the first sovereign default in Ottoman history. The empire had been hemorrhaging money financing the 1875 Balkan uprisings and servicing European bond debt, and paper money of small denominations like this 20 Kuruş was pushed into circulation to cover basic government expenditures when coin was effectively unavailable.

Printed in Constantinople rather than abroad, these notes lack the engraving quality of earlier BIO issues produced by European security printers. The war with Russia began in 1877, and notes from this window are frequently found in poor condition — unsurprising given the economic dislocation of that period.