10 Dollar Seamen's Trade Vouchers. Baltona

Baltona (Przedsiębiorstwo Handlu Zagranicznego Baltona) was the Polish state foreign-trade enterprise that operated a network of hard-currency shops — accessible to foreign sailors, diplomats, and select others — as a mechanism for the state to capture convertible currency without liberalizing access to it. These seamen's vouchers functioned as internal scrip: a sailor earning dollars or marks abroad could exchange them for Baltona notes, spend them in Baltona shops, and never touch złoty at all.

The watermark security on a domestically printed voucher of this type speaks to the counterfeit risk Baltona clearly anticipated from its own clientele.