1 Lek Prova

Albania's first modern coinage program launched in 1926 under Ahmet Zogu, who had declared himself President the previous year and would crown himself King in 1928. The "Prova" designation marks this as a pattern strike — produced for official examination and approval before a design enters circulation. Most Albanian prova pieces from this series were struck in Rome at the Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, which handled the young nation's coinage contracts throughout the late 1920s. Survivor populations are extremely small; patterns that failed approval were rarely preserved in quantity.