Quote: "sarikanair"Looks like a very old note from Turque, The designs and Persian legends look splendid, even though the note is not in a great condition...
A little late perhaps, but I felt I should add for your benefit here, that the word "Turque" is the feminine form of the word "Turkish" in French, not the name of the note's country of origin.... The legends aren't Persian either, they're in Turkish, written in the Perso-Arabic script.
In the central part, on the second line, some of you will recognize the word for Constantinople/Istanbul in the Arabic script, قسطنطينية, and further to the left, the date ١٢٩٠ (AH 1290 = AD March 1st 1873─February 17th 1874) though this would be the original date of issue and may have been used for many years.
It looks like the Bank was run by foreigners, including a "E. Beauvais" who was probably French. This is not surprising in a period of reforms and rebuilding of the state institutions.
Quote: "Camerinvs"It looks like the Bank was run by foreigners, including a "E. Beauvais" who was probably French. This is not surprising in a period of reforms and rebuilding of the state institutions.
Following the Congress of Berlin in 1878, in 1881 the Ottoman Public Debt Administration was set up by European powers to make sure the ailing Empire never defaulted on it's debts; apparently at its height it employed more people than the Ottoman finance industry.
Must've been pretty humiliating for an empire, that threatened Rome and Vienna two centuries ago, to now have foreigners running it's economic organs....
Quote: "CassTaylor"Following the Congress of Berlin in 1878, in 1881 the Ottoman Public Debt Administration was set up by European powers to make sure the ailing Empire never defaulted on it's debts; apparently at its height it employed more people than the Ottoman finance industry.
Must've been pretty humiliating for an empire, that threatened Rome and Vienna two centuries ago, to now have foreigners running it's economic organs....
True. The Banque impériale ottomane, however, had been founded in 1863, when of course the Ottoman Empire was already in big financial troubles.
