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5 Livres Turques
| Issuer | Banque Impériale Ottomane |
|---|---|
| Year | 1882 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Livres Turques |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in blue and green on white cotton paper, with an elaborate guilloche border framing the entire note. The Ottoman tughra appears at the top centre, flanked by the serial number in both Roman and Arabic numerals at upper left and right. A large central red-pink elliptical guilloche underprint carries multiple lines of Ottoman Turkish text in calligraphic script, with the denomination numeral '5' displayed in a circular cartouche at left and in Arabic script at right. Two manuscript signatures appear across the lower centre, with the French legend 'Remboursable à Constantinople' printed below them at left. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | CINQ TURQUES 5 LIVRES TURQUES Remboursable à Constantinople دولت عليه عثمانيه بنك امپريال عثماني |
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| Comments |
The Banque Impériale Ottomane was a Franco-British joint venture chartered in 1863 to act as the Ottoman Empire's state bank — issuing currency, managing public debt, and holding the treasury account of a government that was chronically insolvent. Bradbury, Wilkinson's involvement placed this squarely within the network of British security printers servicing imperial and colonial banking houses across the period.
The 1882 series followed a major Ottoman default in 1875 and the subsequent Muharrem Decree of 1881, which restructured the empire's foreign debt under European creditor supervision. These notes circulated into an economy still absorbing that settlement.