500 Zlotych

The 1948 Polish 500 Złotych (P#140) belongs to the first postwar series issued under full communist consolidation of the banking system — Narodowy Bank Polski had been reconstituted as a state monobank in 1945, replacing the prewar institution in name while severing it entirely from its interwar function. This series was printed in Moscow, a detail the Polish authorities were not eager to publicize, and the Soviet origin is detectable in the printing quality and paper stock when compared against notes printed domestically in subsequent decades.

The 1950 currency reform rendered the entire series worthless at a punishing exchange rate of 100 old złotych to 1 new — effectively a confiscation of private savings. Hoarding was common beforehand; discovery by authorities was dangerous.