Catalog
500 000 Zlotys
| Issuer | Narodowy Bank Polski (National Bank of Poland) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1993 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | RZECZPOSPOLITA POLSKA 500 000 PIĘĆSET TYSIĘCY ZŁOTYCH WARSZAWA, 16 LISTOPADA 1993 r. PREZES NARODOWEGO BANKU POLSKIEGO GŁÓWNY SKARBNIK NARODOWEGO BANKU POLSKIEGO HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ (Translation: REPUBLIC OF POLAND FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND ZLOTYCH WARSAW, 16 NOVEMBER 1993 PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL BANK OF POLAND MAIN TREASURER OF THE NATIONAL BANK OF POLAND HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ) |
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| Protection description | Henryk Sienkiewicz portrait visible when held to light; embedded security thread running vertically through the paper |
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| Comments |
By the time this note entered circulation, Poland's post-communist hyperinflation had already peaked — the worst came in 1989–1990, when annual inflation briefly exceeded 600%. The 500,000 złoty denomination is itself the measure of that damage: in 1980, the largest circulating note had been 500 złotych. The 1994 redenomination replaced 10,000 old złotych with one new złoty, making this note worth fifty of the incoming currency and rendering the entire series obsolete within a year of printing.
PWPW had been producing Polish banknotes domestically since the interwar period, a point of deliberate national policy maintained even through the communist decades.