20 Marks

The Polska Krajowa Kasa Pożyczkowa was not a Polish institution in origin — it was established in 1916 by the German occupation authorities as a vehicle to finance war expenditure and displace Russian ruble circulation in occupied Polish territory. When Poland regained independence in November 1918, the new state inherited the PKKP wholesale, continuing to issue its notes through 1919 and into 1920 simply because there was no alternative infrastructure yet in place.

The Pick 26 series ran to over twelve million pieces, reflecting the enormous demand pressure of a newly reconstituted state managing demobilization, border wars on three fronts, and rampant inflation simultaneously. The marka inflated catastrophically through this period — by 1923, the exchange rate against the US dollar had collapsed past 6,000,000 marks to the dollar, rendering notes like this one economically worthless before the złoty reform of 1924 extinguished the series entirely.