100 Zlotys Józef Piłsudski

Piłsudski died in May 1935, and Poland spent the following decades unable to openly commemorate him — first under Nazi occupation, then under a Soviet-aligned government that had little appetite for celebrating the man who defeated the Red Army at Warsaw in 1920. This coin is partly a product of that long deferral. The 2015 date falls on the 80th anniversary of his death, which the NBP marked with a broader commemorative program across several denominations.

The .900 gold standard used here follows the consistent fineness NBP has applied to its small-format gold commemoratives since the 1990s.