Polish Post History.

So here we have the Polish zloty, nominal - 2. The year of issue of this coin is 2008. Mint: Warsaw, Poland. Total circulation – 1.400.000. The coin is dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the Polish Post.

On 17 October 1558 Sigismund II Augustus appointed Prospero Provano, an Italian merchant living in Kraków, to organise a postal service in Poland. He was paid 1,500 thalers per annum by the royal treasury to run the postal service. He merged all the private postal services into a single postal service.

On 9 January 1564 Peter Moffon was appointed postmaster general by the Polish King. Moffon, another Italian merchant living in Kraków, was given the postal contract for five years. On 15 June 1569 he was replaced by Sebastiano Montelupi. When King Sigismund Augustus died in 1572, Montelupi continued the service at his own expense for two years. The public postal service then ceased for a period of some 11 years, although a system reserved to royal use was rebuilt from 1574 onwards

On 29 January 1583 Sebastiano Montelupi and his nephew (and adopted heir), Valerio Montelupi, were given a contract to run the postal service for five years. When giving the contract the King, Stefan Batory, introduced a uniform postal rate of 4 groszy per letter not exceeding 1 łut (about 12.66 grams) for any distance in Poland. This was the first uniform postal rate to be introduced in the world. Sebastiano Montelupi died in 1600 aged 84 and Valerio Montelupi continued to run the postal service till his death in 1613