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Ottoman Akçe Silver Coin
The akçe was the Ottoman Empire's core small silver coin from the 14th to the mid-17th century, serving as the standard for daily transactions, milit…
Timeline
- c. 1453–1540Imperial darphane mints · Ottoman EmpireAfter 1453, the Ottomans made the akçe the empire's unified unit of account, circulating widely in the Balkans and Anatolia, supporting timar military pay and small market transactions, with relatively stable silver content.
- c. 1541–1550Istanbul · IstanbulIn the 1540s, the empire was continuously at war on the Hungarian and Persian fronts; fiscal pressure drove repeated reductions in the akçe's silver content and increases in coinage volume, causing prices to rise in the capital and provinces and reducing the real purchasing power of taxes and military pay denominated in akçe.
Sources
- An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 — Halil İnalcık with Donald Quataert (1994)
- A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire — Şevket Pamuk (2000)