100 Zlotych Tadeusz Kościuszko, Trial Strike

This is a trial strike (próba) produced for internal approval during the design evaluation process — never released to circulation and struck in nickel rather than the copper-nickel of the eventual circulation issue. The NBP issued dozens of such próba pieces throughout the 1970s, most in extremely limited quantities, often fewer than a hundred examples per type.

Kościuszko's selection for the 100-złotych denomination in 1976 was politically deliberate: his reputation as both a Polish independence fighter and a veteran of the American Revolutionary War gave him ideological utility even under the communist government, which could frame him as an anti-imperialist rather than a nationalist.