50 Lekë

The 1957 Albanian series, of which this note forms part, was issued under the communist government of Enver Hoxha during a period of tight Soviet economic alignment. Albania had broken with Yugoslavia in 1948 and was by this point firmly within the Soviet orbit, a relationship that would itself collapse acrimoniously in 1961 — making this entire series a relic of a very specific and short-lived political arrangement.

The Banka e Shtetit Shqiptar had replaced the earlier Banka Kombëtare e Shqipërisë in 1945, and by 1957 was operating under full state planning directives. The notes of this series were printed in the Soviet Union, consistent with Albanian printing arrangements of the period.