20 Zlotys People's Republic, Trial Strike

Trial strikes from Mennica Polska in the 1970s occupy an oddly specific niche: produced for internal approval purposes within the centrally planned economy, they required sign-off through a bureaucratic chain that often meant multiple compositional and dimensional variants were struck before a type was authorized. This piece is one such pre-production specimen, distinct from the issued circulation type. The Fischer and ParM references both catalog Polish próby with enough granularity to distinguish sub-variants — the "b" suffix here indicates this is not the primary trial submission but a secondary attempt, likely differing in alloy specification or surface treatment from the "a" variant.