Description and research notes
Archival watermarked paper prepared by Thomas De La Rue and Company Limited in London for the unissued Bank Polski 20 Zlotych banknote dated 2 January 1928. This piece preserves the original production substrate for the note: the security paper with multitone portrait watermark, before banknote printing. It is not a printed banknote, but a surviving archival component from one of the most important unrealized Polish banknote projects of the interwar period.
The 1928 London emission consisted of two denominations, 10 and 20 Zlotych. The 10 Zlotych proceeded into circulation and is known in issued and specimen forms, while the 20 Zlotych remained outside circulation and is known through very limited surviving production material. The project belongs to the early Bank Polski effort to create a technically advanced modern banknote series using London security-printing expertise.
The planned 20 Zlotych design was significant for Polish banknote history because steel engraving, or staloryt, was used for the first time in Polish banknote production. The portrait of Marynia Połaniecka, after the graphic work of Piotr Stachiewicz, was executed as the central artistic feature of the note. On this sheet, that portrait survives in watermark form, translated into the paper itself as a multitone security image positioned in the unprinted field of the planned banknote.
The importance of the sheet lies in that physical relationship between design and substrate. It documents the watermark stage of production before the full printed note, showing how the portrait element was embedded into the paper as a security feature. The watermark is not a decorative afterthought. It is part of the technical architecture of the proposed 1928 20 Zlotych issue and reflects the high level of security preparation invested in a note that ultimately did not enter circulation.
The sheet originates from the Thomas De La Rue archive in London. Only a small number of such archival watermark sheets are known from that source. It preserves primary manufacturing evidence for a Bank Polski denomination that remained unrealized in issued form.
R9 Extremely Rare. Archival watermark sheets for the unissued 1928 Bank Polski 20 Zlotych are known in only a handful of examples, all connected to the Thomas De La Rue archival group. This piece is museum-grade production evidence for the paper, watermark, portrait preparation, and security-printing ambition behind one of the rarest twentieth-century Polish banknote projects.