About
Project White Eagle

What This Is

Project White Eagle is a free, open reference database documenting the complete monetary history of Poland. It covers over a thousand years of coinage, from the earliest denars struck by the Piast princes in the late tenth century to the commemorative złoty series issued by the Narodowy Bank Polski today. Every coin record is structured, sourced, and linkable.

This is not a buying or selling platform. It is a research tool: a place to look up mintage figures, verify auction prices, read about historical context, and follow citations back to their original sources. The database is static and human-curated. Prices reflect auction hammer prices at the time they were recorded, not current retail valuations, and are updated manually on a rolling basis.

Poland's numismatic history is unusually rich and unusually difficult to access in one place. Resources exist in Polish, in German, in Latin catalogues, across auction archives scattered across Europe and America. This project exists to bring that information together in a single, accessible, English-language database, while always linking back to the authoritative primary sources.

Current Coverage

The database currently holds 3,608 coin records spanning nine historical periods. Coverage ranges from the earliest Piast-era denars (high scholarly confidence, low mintage precision) through to modern collector issues of the Third Polish Republic, where NBP and Mennica Polska publish official mintage figures and a small subset of records also carry NGC/PCGS or Heritage/Stack's Bowers references where those have been verified.

The primary outstanding gap is coin images. Because this database only displays images that are free to use publicly — public domain or open-licensed sources — many records currently have no image even where the coin itself is well documented. Sourcing legally usable photography across 1,000 years of Polish coinage is an ongoing effort. Individual coin details such as weight, diameter, full design descriptions, and price data are also incomplete for a number of records and will be filled in progressively as research continues. Auction price data for medieval and Commonwealth-era coins remains thin and will be expanded in future data passes. The Partitions Era coverage has been expanded to include Austrian Galicia and Prussian South Prussia, East Prussia, Danzig, and Posen Province series. This is an ever-evolving database — records improve continuously, and completeness is a direction rather than a finish line.

Data Methodology

Every field in the database is treated as a distinct claim that either has a cited source or is marked explicitly as null or estimated. No data point is inferred without documentation. The standard workflow for each coin record:

• 1
  Identify and record sources first

  Source metadata (label, URL, type, access date) is captured directly on each coin record in the sources array, so every claim about a coin links back to where it came from. Each source entry includes a confidence rating; entries are kept inline with the coin rather than in a separate index so the citations travel with the data.

• 2
  Two-source verification for specs and mintage where possible

  Physical specifications (weight, diameter, metal) and mintage figures are cross-referenced across at least two independent sources where the underlying material allows. About 72% of records currently carry two or more independent source citations; coins with only a single source or pending verification are flagged for follow-up rather than presented as fully verified. Uncertain mintage values carry quantity_estimated: true in the data model.

• 3
  Single-source for auction prices

  Auction realized prices require only one verifiable source: the auction house record itself. Each price entry records the auction house name, lot number (when available), sale date, and USD amount. Prices are hammer prices (realized), not retail estimates.

• 4
  null over fabrication

  If a data point cannot be verified from cited sources, the field is set to null. The database does not estimate, interpolate, or synthesize values. Gaps are documented explicitly so future passes can fill them.

• 5
  Original prose, not copied text

  All coin descriptions are written as original prose. No text is copied from source websites, catalog entries, or auction lot descriptions. This avoids copyright issues and ensures descriptions reflect the full picture from multiple sources.

Primary Sources

The database draws on a range of institutional, numismatic, and scholarly sources. Citations live inline on each coin record — every claim links back to the URL it came from and the date it was accessed. Key source categories:

Rarity Scale

Where assigned, coin rarity follows the Parchimowicz / Kopicki R-scale, the standard reference system in Polish numismatics. The scale runs from R1 (common, in collectors' hands) through R8 (unique or near-unique, institutionally held). Most modern circulation coins carry no rarity grade; the scale is most meaningful for pre-partition and Partitions Era coinage.

Denomination Terminology

You will see the same coin referred to under several different spellings across this site, on the actual coins themselves, and in numismatic literature. These are not errors — they reflect different languages, grammatical forms, and historical conventions. The most common case is the ducat / dukat, the gold trade coin of Renaissance and early-modern Europe. The table below covers the variants you are most likely to encounter.

On this site we use the modern English form (Ducat, 2 Ducats, 10 Ducats, etc.) in the structured denomination field for searchability, and retain the historical Polish names (Dukat, Dwudukat, Portugał, Donatywa) in the descriptive name field for Commonwealth-era coins where those names were in actual use. The Latin inscription is captured in the obverse / reverse description fields where known.

Other Polish denominations

The same Polish grammatical pattern applies to every other coin name you'll see in the database. The form changes by number (1 / 2–4 / 5+) and by case (genitive after fractions like ½). All are correct — none are misspellings.

Partition-era foreign denominations

When Poland was partitioned (1795–1918) the occupying powers each circulated their own currency. These show up in the database whenever the issuing authority struck a coin specifically for Polish circulation (Galicia, Duchy of Warsaw, Congress Kingdom, WWI occupation), and the Polish form of the denomination is what appears on the coin itself in many cases.

A few denominations carry over between systems: szeląg, grosz, and talar all appear in both pre-Partition Polish and Habsburg/Prussian post-Partition contexts because the partitioning powers used Polish denomination names on coins struck specifically for Polish-speaking populations.

Price Guide Methodology

Price data in this database represents realized auction hammer prices, meaning the amount a buyer actually paid at auction, exclusive of buyer's premium where noted. These are not retail ask prices, dealer estimates, or catalog valuations.

Grades follow the standard Sheldon scale used by NGC and PCGS: MS70 (perfect mint state) down through AU (about uncirculated), EF (extremely fine), VF (very fine), F (fine), VG (very good), G (good). The grades object in each coin record holds the most recent verified auction price per grade for quick lookup. The auction_records array holds the full history of individual sale records, including auction house, sale date, lot number, and USD price.

All price data is static, manually updated from auction archives on a rolling basis. This site does not fetch live data from any pricing API. Prices are stamped with a last_updated date so users can assess how current the data is. Medieval and early modern coins often have no price data, as their market is thin and specialist, largely conducted through European auction houses (Sincona, MDC Monaco, Künker) whose archives are not fully digitized.

Project Scope

The following guide what is and is not in scope for this database: