20 Piastres

The Dette Publique Ottomane — the Ottoman Public Debt Administration — was a European-controlled body established in 1881 after the Sublime Porte defaulted on its foreign obligations. That a debt-management institution was issuing emergency currency by 1916 reflects how severely the First World War had strained Ottoman financial infrastructure. The Imperial Treasury could not meet wartime demand alone, and ancillary authorities were pressed into service.

Wartime paper shortages and compressed production schedules affected the quality and consistency of this series noticeably — specialists report significant variation in ink saturation across surviving examples.