Treasury ticket - 100 Polish zlotys

Treasury tickets with the face value of 100 Polish zlotys from the Kościuszko Uprising were introduced into circulation on 16 August 1794 together with other face values of the first series. They served as means of payment until the end of the uprising, on 6 November of that year. The total circulation of tickets of this value amounted to 19,300 pieces. Thus, they represented less than 1 percent of the total production of treasury tickets, but their face value was as high as 18 percent of the total production. Unlike the lower denominations, the 100-zloty tickets, like the 500- and 1000-zloty ones, were printed on slightly thicker paper, although they came from the same paper mills located in the Netherlands and today's Belgium. The only difference is that on paper from the J HONIG&ZOONEN paper mill the watermark depicting the coat of arms and the inscription with the name of the paper mill are larger than on paper from the same company used to print the 5, 10, 25 and 50-zloty tickets. It is most probable that no special paper supplies were ordered for the printing of the treasury tickets of all the denominations of the first series, but stocks gathered in Warsaw for a completely different purpose were used on an ad hoc basis.

The 100-zloty tickets were printed on paper coloured red with a pink tint. All graphic elements – coats of arms of Poland and Lithuania, revolutionary symbols and the text on the tickets – were printed in copperplate, while the decorative border was made in woodcut.

The present specimen is numbered 3951. It was cut by hand from a bound block, and this was done with great care, so that the length of the ticket is comparable on both sides with a constant width. It has all the security features of treasury tickets, i.e., the specific colour of the paper used, the individual number, the chemically coloured paper around the letters B and S which stand for ‘Treasury Ticket’ (Bilet Skarbowy), the imprint of an intentionally broken dry stamp with the inscription ‘Directorate of Treasury Tickets’, a different pattern of the decorative frame with a dominant triangle motif, and the signatures of the commissioners – in this case J. Gaczkowski, J. Klek and A. Michałowski. Both the ticket number and the signatures were handwritten in ink. Perhaps an additional security element was the use of three colours of ink for the signatures: red, black and brown.

Leszek Poniewozik