20 Franka Ari

Albania's first national bank, established in 1925 under Italian financial sponsorship, issued this note the following year as part of the country's maiden paper currency series. The "Ari" designation — gold franc — was a deliberate peg to the gold standard, though the currency's practical backing was always more political than metallic. Bradbury Wilkinson, then operating out of New Malden, produced the printing; their work for newly sovereign and client states across the interwar period was extensive, and Albanian notes of this period follow their characteristically clean intaglio style.

The series is genuinely scarce in any grade, largely because Albanian paper money penetration remained shallow in a rural economy that still preferred coin.