Historical Turkish banknote up for sale
ISTANBUL
A first-emission 1,000 Turkish Lira banknote which was printed in the U.K. in 1927 was put up for sale at an online auction with an opening price of 800,000 Turkish Liras (nearly 60,000 dollars).
The banknote features a portrait of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, on the front and an image of the Geyve strait section of the Sakarya railway line on the other side.
The phrase “Republic of Turkey” was written in Ottoman Turkish and French on the banknote, which was signed by Mustafa Abdülhalik Renda, the newly founded republic’s finance minister.
Since it was printed before the alphabet reform and went out of circulation in 1939, it is estimated that only seven of the historical banknotes, which were equivalent to 1,000 gold coins in 1927, have survived to this day.
The banknote, which is defined as very rare, is expected to find buyers on the first hour of its auction organized by the Istanbul-based investigative writer Necati Doğan.
