10 Zlotys Mikolaj Kopernik, large type, Trial Strike

The 1959 Kopernik zloty series was part of a broader push by the Polish People's Republic to rehabilitate national heroes as ideological symbols — astronomers made safer pantheon material than soldiers or clergy. This particular large-type trial exists because the mint worked through at least two distinct size configurations before settling on the final circulating specification, a process documented across the Fischer and Parchimowicz reference variants. Trial strikes in aluminium from this period were produced in extremely limited numbers for internal approval, rarely escaping the mint's own archives before surfacing decades later in specialist collections.