25 Zlotys

Issued during the Kościuszko Uprising, this note was produced by the Najwyższa Rada Narodowa — the insurrectionary government established after Kościuszko assumed dictatorial powers in March 1794. Poland had no functioning central bank; the council issued paper money out of wartime fiscal necessity, backed by nothing more solid than the revolution's survival prospects. The uprising collapsed by November of that year, and with it any redemption mechanism for the series.

Surviving examples are rare precisely because the notes had so brief a window of legitimate use. The watermark is the primary security feature — sophisticated for a wartime issue printed entirely within besieged Warsaw.