10 Zlotys Kazimierz Wielki, Trial Strike Ni eagle without crown

This is a pattern strike from Poland's extensive 1964 proof and trial program, which produced numerous compositional and design variants ahead of the circulating 10 Złotych series honoring Kazimierz Wielki — Casimir the Great, the 14th-century king credited with transforming Poland from wood to stone. The "eagle without crown" detail is the key distinction here: communist-era Polish coinage systematically removed the crown from the national eagle, a deliberate ideological erasure of monarchical symbolism that had defined the emblem for centuries. Trial pieces exploring this motif in nickel document the mint's working-through of that political constraint in metal before production was finalized.