Coins and Currency

of the Ottoman Empire

by Şevket Pamuk

Imperium Turcicum complectens Europae,

Asiae et Africae, Map of the Ottoman
Empire, by P. Schenk (Amsterdam, c.
1720), 49 x 58,5 cm.

The Gurush: A New Ottoman Monetary Unit in the Eighteenth Century

The seventeenth century had been a period of

instability for the Ottoman currency culminating
around the middle of the century in the closure of
Ottoman mints, the cessation of the production of
silver akches and their use as a means of exchange.
The decline of the akche posed serious challenges
to the Ottoman administration. Without control
over the currency, its control over the economy
diminished considerably. Moreover, the
disintegration of the monetary system and the
increasing reliance on foreign coins had serious
political implications. During the second half of the
seventeenth century the government thus made
numerous attempts at establishing a new currency
but these proved to be unsuccessful due to the
continuation of wars and fiscal difficulties. After a
long interval of inactivity, the mint in Istanbul
resumed operations in 1685, producing the small

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 akches and the copper mangir beginning in 1689.
Supported by the revenues from this experiment,
the government then renewed its efforts to
establish a new system around a large silver unit
modelled after the European coins circulating in
the Ottoman markets since the middle of the
sixteenth century.
The first large silver coins were minted in 1690
after the Polish coin isolette or zolota which was
imported in large quantities by Dutch merchants
during the seventeenth century. These coins were
about one third smaller than the Dutch thalers.
[1] Their weight was fixed in standard dirhams (3,20
grams) and they contained 60 percent silver and 40
percent copper. The largest of these weighed 6
dirhams, or approximately 19.2 grams. Later, in
1703, an even larger coin weighing approximately 8
dirhams, or 25-26 grams and its fractions were also
minted. It appears that the first large coin of 1690
was intended as a zolota or cedid (new) zolota to
distinguish it from the popular Polish coin and not
as a gurush or piaster.[2] Only after larger silver
coins began to be minted in the early decades of the
eighteenth century, was the new monetary scale
clearly established. The new Ottoman gurush was
then fixed at 120 akches or 40 paras. The early
gurushes weighed six and a quarter dirhams (20.0
grams) and contained close to 60 percent silver.
The zolotas were valued at three fourths of the
gurush or at 90 akches. The fractions of both the
gurush and zolota were then minted accordingly.
[3] Due to wars and continuing political turmoil,
however, many coins were minted with sub-
standard silver content until the monetary reform
of 1715-16. The appearance of sub-standard
coinage attracted large numbers of counterfeiters
until the 1720s.

Gold

Tuğra /
Duribe fi İslâmbol
1115*
diameter: 24 mm
weight: 3.35 g

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 Zeri Mahbub

Sultanül berreyni
[...]/
Tuğra, azze
nasrühü düribe fi
İslâmbol 1115*
diameter: 18 mm
weight: 2.60 g

Silver
Gurush
= 40 paras

Sultanül berreyni
[...]/
Tuğra, duribe fi
Kostantiniye 1115
diameter: 40 mm
weight: 25.65 g

Zolota
= 30 paras

Sultanül berreyni
[...]/
Tuğra, duribe fi
Kostantiniye 1115
diameter: 39 mm
weight: 19.60 g

Yirmilik
"piece of 20"
= 20 paras

Sultanül berreyni
[...]/
Tuğra, duribe fi
Kostantiniye 1115
diameter: 34 mm
weight: 12.68 g

Para
= 3 Akches

Tuğra /
Duribe fi
Kostantiniye 1115
diameter: 15 mm
weight: 0.55 g

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 Akçe

Tuğra /
Duribe fi
Kostantiniye 1115
diameter: 11 mm
weight: 0.20 g

* “Duribe fi Kostantiniye
1115” or “düribe fi
İslâmbol 1115” i.e. minted
in Kostantaniyye or
Islambol (the alternative
name for Istanbul or
Constantinople) in the year
1115 H (i.e. of Hegira, the
Islamic calendar, that is
1703 AD, which indicates
not neccessarily the year of
the actual production of
the coin but the year of
accession of Sultan
Ahmed III; all of the coins
minted during his reign
bear the same date).
“Tugra” means the
imperial seal of the sultan.

By the 1720s a full spectrum of silver coinage had

emerged from the gurush down to the para and the
tiny akche. While the gurush, zolota and the 20 para
piece were used for medium and larger
transactions, 1, 5 and 10 para pieces served as petty
coinage. By this time, the purchasing power of the
akche, valued at one-third of the para, had become
too small for most daily purposes.[4] For this
reason, the para, more than the akche, served as the
basic unit of account for small transactions. In
addition, some copper coinage were minted in
Istanbul and eastern Anatolia but their volumes
were limited.
As for gold coins, the Ottoman sultani, or sherifi as
it was also called, which had remained close to the
standards of the Venetian ducat since the fifteenth
century was discontinued late in the seventeenth
century. In the early part of the eighteenth century,
as gold made a comeback in Europe and elsewhere,
Ottoman minting activity also resumed. In the

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place of the sultani, a number of new gold coins
called tughrali, cedid Istanbul, zincirli, findik and
zer-i mahbub were initiated between 1697 and
1728. All but the last of these started close to the
standards of the ducat. Following the practice
dating back to the fifteenth century, the
government did not attach a fixed face value to
these gold coins. Their exchange rates were
determined by the markets. In payments to the
state, gold coins were accepted at the official rates
of exchange.
The eighteenth century until the 1780s was a period
of commercial and economic expansion coupled
with fiscal stability in most parts of the Ottoman
Empire. These favorable conditions as well as the
rising supplies of silver helped establish the gurush
as the leading unit of account and means of
exchange by the middle of the eighteenth century.
The emergence of the new unit was accompanied
by centralization of mint activity in the core regions
of the empire, from the Balkans to Anatolia, as well
as Syria and Iraq.

Şevket Pamuk © 2004

Notes

1.These new coins carried the date of H.1099 (1687-

88), the year of accession to the throne of sultan
Süleyman II.

2.Numismatic catalogues incorrectly suggest that the

6 dirham piece minted in 1690 was the first Ottoman
gurush and the weight of the Ottoman gurush was
revised upwards to 8 dirhams in 1703.

3.The new unit was also called cedid (new) gurush to

distinguish it from the European groschen, most
notably the esedi ("lion") gurus or the Dutch thaler
which had become emerged a unit of account as well
as a medium of exchange for medium and large
transactions. See J. Sultan, Coins of the Ottoman Empire
and the Turkish Republic, A Detailed Catalogue of the Jem
Sultan Collection, 2 vols., (Thousand Oaks, California:
B and R Publishers, 1977), pp. 196-211.

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4.The daily wage of an unskilled construction worker
in Istanbul was approximately 8 paras or 24 akches
during the early decades of the eighteenth century.

Literature

Pamuk, Şevket, A Monetary History of the

Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000).