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20 Zlotych
| Issuer | Bank Polski |
|---|---|
| Year | 1936 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | To the left of centre, an intaglio sculptural vignette shows a standing woman holding a child, with a second kneeling child at her feet; at upper centre, the issuer name BANK POLSKI and denomination DWADZIEŚCIA ZŁOTYCH appear in bold letterpress within a guilloche underprint panel, with the date WARSZAWA 11 LISTOPADA 1936 R. and three facsimile signatures below. To the right, a portrait vignette of Emilia Plater in three-quarter view is set within a decorative frame, accompanied by an oval guilloche medallion bearing the Polish eagle, with the serial number printed in red at lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Protection description | Portrait watermark of Emilia Plater in the unprinted field. |
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| Comments |
The 1936 series was Bank Polski's last prewar overhaul before the German invasion rendered the entire currency infrastructure irrelevant. Borowski's designs for this series were widely regarded as among the more accomplished Polish banknote work of the interwar period, and Vacek's intaglio engraving gave the series a crispness that offset printing couldn't achieve. PWPW had been producing security documents since 1919, and by 1936 had genuine technical confidence.
A print run just over 12 million is not especially large for a mid-denomination note intended for broad circulation. Notes that survived September 1939 often circulated under occupation anyway — the Germans initially permitted continued use of zloty-denominated notes through the Bank Emisyjny w Polsce from 1940.