20000 — Twenty Thousand Lira
The artwork
Front: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in white tie and dinner jacket, three-quarter profile facing left, engraved in deep red over a fine guilloche ground. The centre carries the bank's name, YİRMİ BİN TÜRK LİRASI, and the enabling text "14 Ocak 1970 tarih ve 1211 sayılı kanuna göre çıkarılmıştır", above the two signatures of the Başkan and Başkan Yardımcısı. Left of centre, a tall teardrop panel of Ottoman illumination in pale blue and rose.
Back: The head office of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey in Ankara, drawn in violet: the slab tower rising over its low podium block, with landscaped terraces, railings and trees in the foreground and city blocks receding to the left. The same illuminated teardrop motif is repeated to the right in blue and brown line-work, with a small printed rosette below it and 20000 above.
In circulation
Issued from 1988 as the top denomination of its day, still under the 1970 central bank law. Galloping inflation soon pushed it down the ladder as 50,000, 100,000 and eventually million-lira notes appeared, and it was finally swept away by the 2005 revaluation, when a million old lira became one new lira.
Details
- IssuerTürkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankası
- CurrencyLira
- DenominationTwenty Thousand Lira
- Collectedon the Türkiye journeys, 1995–2022
- SeriesLaw of 14 January 1970, no. 1211; serial G73 480118
- SignatureBaşkan and Başkan Yardımcısı (Governor and Deputy Governor)
- WatermarkHead of Atatürk