10 Lek

Printed by the Officina della Banca d'Italia in Rome, this note was issued by Albania's National Bank under conditions of extreme political flux — 1945 placed the country mid-transition between wartime occupation and Enver Hoxha's consolidating communist government. The bank itself would be dissolved and replaced within a few years as the new regime restructured Albania's financial institutions entirely.

The Italian connection is not incidental. Albanian banknote production had run through Rome since the interwar period, and even as the political relationship between the two countries collapsed following Italy's 1943 armistice, the printing infrastructure remained the practical option. This series was among the last to use that arrangement before Albania's monetary system was reorganized under the 1947 lek reform.