10 Zlotys Władysław IV Waza

Władysław IV, elected king of Poland in 1632, spent much of his reign fending off Muscovite, Ottoman, and Swedish aggression while navigating a nobility that systematically undermined royal military funding. He died in 1648 just as the Cossack uprising that would trigger the catastrophic wars of the following decade was igniting — a conflict his successor would fail to contain. Poland's commemorative zloty series of the late 1990s drew heavily on the Jagiellonian and Vasa dynasties, issuing silver pieces in relatively modest quantities targeting domestic collectors rather than international markets.