1 Franc / Frange

Korça (Koritza in French transliteration) was administered as a French-protected zone from 1916 to 1920, a peculiar interlude carved out during the collapse of Ottoman authority and the chaos of the First World War's Balkan front. France established a nominal autonomous Albanian administration there under its military umbrella, and this note is a direct product of that arrangement — local currency for a territory that existed, politically speaking, on borrowed time.

The S-prefix in the Pick reference correctly flags this as a local or provisional issue rather than a national one. The official stamp serving as the primary security feature is characteristic of improvised military-administered currencies, where printing infrastructure was limited and authentication had to be applied post-production.

French forces withdrew in 1920 and the territory was absorbed into the Albanian state, making this a very short-lived issue from a jurisdiction that ceased to exist entirely.