50 Lekë Albanian Railroads, Piedfort Essai

Piedfort essais — struck at double the standard thickness on polished blanks — were almost never intended for circulation. This Albanian example, produced during the final years of Enver Hoxha's isolationist state, was almost certainly struck for presentation or diplomatic purposes; Albania in 1988 maintained fewer than a handful of formal foreign relationships and had been functionally sealed from the West since the 1961 Sino-Soviet split drove it from the Eastern Bloc's orbit entirely.

The railways themselves were a point of genuine national pride under the communist regime — construction began in the 1940s with entirely voluntary labor, a fact the government broadcast loudly.