50 Lekë

The 1947 Albanian note series, of which this is part, was issued under the communist government that had consolidated power following the partisan victory in 1944. The Banka e Shtetit Shqiptar — the State Bank of Albania — replaced the earlier Italian-backed institutions, and the 1947 notes marked a deliberate break from the wartime monetary apparatus. Albania's postwar currency was unusually isolated: the country had already begun severing ties with Yugoslavia by the late 1940s, leaving its financial system with few external reference points.

The series was short-lived. A currency reform in 1965 redenominated at 10:1, rendering all preexisting notes obsolete almost overnight.