100 Zlotys Ludwik Zamenhof, Trial Strike

Zamenhof, the Warsaw ophthalmologist who published the first Esperanto grammar in 1887, was commemorated on Polish coinage during a period when the communist government selectively rehabilitated Jewish intellectual figures — a complicated posture given Poland's own postwar history. Trial strikes of this type were produced in limited quantities for internal mint evaluation and collector distribution, and differ from the issued version in alloy composition. The .625 silver used here is notably lower fineness than typical Polish commemorative silver of the period.