Coins to mark the Jasna Gora Jubilee
On 24 August the National Bank of Poland put into circulation coins with the following face value: 20 zloty, struck in proof finish silver and 2 zloty, struck in proof finish in Nordic Gold, to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Jasna Gora defence. The reverse of the first silver coin depicts a portrait of Fr Augustyn Kordecki, from the late 17th century, against the background of the stylized fragment of the etching entitled 'The Siege of Jasna Gora in 1655 by the Swedes' by Johanes Bensheimer.
The obverse has a stylized section of the Pauline monastery at Jasna Gora and the words that John Paul II spoke in 1979: 'Here we have always been free'. The mintage was 69,000 pieces.
The mintage of second coin was 1 million pieces. Its reverse depicts Fr Augustyn Kordecki on the background of the etching by Bensheimer, like the silver coin.
The coins are sold in the NBP bank and in some numismatic shops.
"Niedziela" 37/2005