Albania, Kingdom, Zog I, gold 100-Franga Ar, 1938R (Rome), on marriage (KM 23). Very fine, perhaps better for wear but rather heavily scuffed, rare (£350-450)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of the Coins of Albania.

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In 1928, Zogu was proclaimed king. Today such a development seems positively ruritanian, but probably came as no great shock to the mass of Albanians, long used to pashas and tribal chieftains. What truly smacks of “Zenda” is Zog only became king after the throne was offered to the English cricketer, W.B. Fry, who politely declined. Zogu’s motives were probably to put Albania, and of course himself, on equal footing with the monarchies of Italy and neighbouring Balkan countries. Zogu called himselt Zog as he felt Amed was an inappropriate name for a modern European monarch. He was also styled King of the Albanians. This may have been the autocrat’s nod in the direction of constitutional niceties but probably indicates Zog’s symbolic role as king, and by implication protector, of all Albanians, including those living in neighbouring Yugoslavia and Greece.

In 1938 Zog married the beautiful 23 year old Hungarian beauties, Countess Geraldine Apponyi, the eldest daughter of Count Gyula Apponyi de Nagy-Appony and his American wife, Gladys Virginia (nèe Steuart). A son was born in 1939 and proclaimed king by the Albanian National Assembly in exile. Queen Geraldine was a descendant on her mother’s side, of Isaac Sterarns, whose other descendants include Richard Nixon: thus in an extraordinary twist, the exiled king of a small European country and a former U.S. President are distantly related — in fact ninth cousins.