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500 Leke
| Issuer | Banka e Shqiperise |
|---|---|
| Year | 1996 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Lek (1926-date) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse, rendered in muted blue and grey tones, presents a mountainous Albanian landscape vignette to the left, beside a central guilloche rosette surrounding an upright torch or monument motif. A diagonal band of fine-line guilloche carries an inscribed verse in Albanian script. To the right, a geometric folk-pattern underprint panel accompanies the large '500' numeral and the date '1996' at the lower right. |
| Reverse lettering | BANKA E SHQIPERISE 500 PESEQIND LEKE NE ZBARIT NUK NDRIHET, NE TERA NDRIHET BOTA 1996 |
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| Comments |
Albania's 1996 banknote series was issued during a period of acute institutional stress. Within months of this note entering circulation, the collapse of pyramid investment schemes in early 1997 triggered a near-total breakdown of civil order — the government fell, weapons depots were looted, and a significant portion of circulating currency was destroyed or lost. Notes from this series that survived in any reasonable condition did so largely by accident.
The pyramid crisis wiped out the savings of roughly two-thirds of the Albanian population, and the political fallout required a UN peacekeeping intervention. P#60 predates the chaos by less than a year.