10 000 Marks

The Polska Krajowa Kasa Pożyczkowa was a German-established institution from the First World War occupation that Poland simply kept running after independence — not out of preference but necessity, as the new state had no functioning central bank yet. By 1922, with Polish marks hemorrhaging value under severe postwar inflation, denominations had climbed to figures that would have been unimaginable a decade earlier. This note reached circulation just as the hyperinflationary spiral was accelerating toward the catastrophic 1923 collapse that would eventually necessitate the entire currency's replacement by the złoty.

Kleczewski, Półtawski, and Sowiński were all domestic engravers — the printing in Warsaw marks a deliberate push toward self-sufficient production rather than contracting foreign printers.