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½ Skënder
| Issuer | Katundari e Korçës (Inhabitants of Korçë/Coriza/Korytza) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse presents an oval vignette at left containing a bust portrait of Gjergj Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) in armour, with the inscription GJERGJ KASTRIOTI arcing along the lower border of the vignette. To the right, the denomination is expressed in letterpress as SKENDER GJYSME with a circular framed numeral 1/2 at upper right. A serial number prefixed S.A. No appears at lower centre, accompanied by two handwritten signatures above it. The overall layout is typographically simple, printed in dark brown ink on plain paper with a plain ruled border. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in red-brown ink and displays a central vignette of a standing Albanian woman in traditional costume raising one hand, set within a guilloche-style oval underprint. The denomination fractions 1/2 appear in each corner. The inscriptions KATUNDARIE KORÇËS and GJYSME are arranged around the central image, with the date 1921 below the vignette. A circular official stamp is applied at left, and a decorative key-pattern border frames the entire note. |
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| Comments |
The Korçë municipal notes of 1921 are among the most localized emergency issues in European numismatic history — printed not by a central authority but by a town press, Dhori Koti's lithographic shop, operating under a committee of local inhabitants who had no formal banking mandate whatsoever. The denomination itself, the Skënder, was named for Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu, the 15th-century Albanian national hero, and was essentially invented for the occasion.
Albania had no functioning central bank until 1925. These notes filled a genuine transactional vacuum in a region that had passed through Ottoman, Greek, French, and Italian administrative hands within living memory.