20 Zlotys

Poland's copper-nickel 20 Złotych issues of the mid-1970s circulated during Edward Gierek's borrowing-fueled economic expansion, when the government was financing industrialization on Western credit. The apparent prosperity masked a debt structure that would collapse spectacularly by 1980, triggering the strikes that gave rise to Solidarność. Coins from this run saw heavy everyday use precisely because the regime kept denominations artificially low relative to creeping inflation.