2 Dolary Foreign Exchange Certificate

Pekao's Foreign Exchange Certificates — known colloquially as "pewex bony" — were not currency in any conventional sense. They existed because the Polish state needed hard currency desperately and devised a system to extract dollars, marks, and other Western money from Poles receiving remittances from abroad. The holder surrendered the foreign cash to the state and received these certificates in exchange, redeemable only at Pewex — the network of state-run hard-currency shops selling imported goods unavailable through ordinary retail channels.

A secondary black market developed quickly. The certificates traded at premiums reflecting genuine scarcity of Western goods, and possession of them conveyed a kind of purchasing power entirely outside the zloty economy. The 1979 series was printed by the Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) in Warsaw.