50 Zlotys Duke Mieszko I, Trial Strike

This trial strike belongs to a series NBP issued through the late 1970s commemorating figures from the Piast dynasty — Poland's founding royal line. Mieszko I, who ruled from roughly 960 to 992 AD, is credited with the Christianization of Poland in 966, the political act that effectively inserted the Polish state into the European feudal order and gave it a degree of protection against forced conversion by German neighbors. The choice of copper-nickel for this trial, rather than silver, reflects the NBP's testing of alloys for a commemorative program produced under hard currency constraints in the late Gierek period.