100 Zlotys Polish Millennium Trial Strike Ag faces left

Poland's Millennium coinage commemorated 1,000 years of Polish statehood — dated to the traditional founding year of 966, when Mieszko I accepted baptism and, with it, formal entry into the Christian political order of Europe. The program produced an unusually large number of trial strikes and pattern variants as the NBP worked through design and alloy options, which explains the proliferation of Fischer and ParM subcategories for what is ostensibly a single issue.

This face-left portrait variant was rejected in favor of the face-right design that reached circulation. Surviving trial pieces entered collections primarily through official channels in the early 1960s.