100 Lekë

The 1957 series marked a consolidation of Albanian currency design under the communist state bank, which had replaced the pre-war Banka Kombëtare e Shqipërisë following Enver Hoxha's postwar nationalizations. By this point Albania was still formally within the Soviet bloc's economic orbit, and Soviet technical assistance extended to currency production — though the precise printing arrangements for this series remain incompletely documented.

The cotton substrate with watermark security was modest by contemporary European standards, reflecting both the country's isolation and the relatively low counterfeiting risk in a tightly controlled command economy where banknote transactions were closely monitored.