 Officially abandoned in 1955, the banner continued to be used in practice by the prime minister and, during the 1960s, by the Council of State, a collective head of state of the time.On December 22, 1990, the last Polish president-in-exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, handed the presidential insignia, including one of the banners rescued by Mościcki in 1939, to Lech Wałęsa, the first democratically elected president of post-war Poland.The ceremony, held at the Royal Castle in Warsaw was seen as a symbol of the Third Republic's continuity with the pre-war Second Republic.