Description and research notes
This example documents the use of a previously unrecorded AR prefix on a known approval specimen type of the 50 zlotych banknote from the 1994 Polish issue.
The note is a fully printed approval specimen produced by Thomas De La Rue in London for the National Bank of Poland as part of the formal approval process for the final design intended for circulation. It retains the complete structure of the emission design, corresponding to the version that subsequently entered regular production.
Printed in London on security paper featuring a multitone watermark portrait of King Casimir III the Great, the note preserves the full serial numbering AR0000000 and the original signatures of Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, President of the National Bank of Poland, and Wieslaw Biernatowicz, Chief Treasurer. The graphic design by Andrzej Heidrich, executed in steel engraving, incorporates the full set of elements planned for the circulating 1994 series.
The approval specimen bearing the AR prefix is not recorded in the works of Czeslaw Milczak nor in the Pick catalog. Its presence expands the documented range of prefixes used during the approval stage of the 1994 banknote series.