Zero Euro (Souvenir) Notes

[chrisild]

Earlier this year, we had the Grand Départ (of the Tour de France) here in Düsseldorf, and one of the souvenirs that people could buy was a ... zero euro note. Had never seen one before, and admittedly I sort of forgot about it again. But in a few days our AquaZoo (that was closed for four years due to some major reconstruction) will open again, and what did I read? Another €0 "note" will come out on that occasion. So I got curious.

Turned out that there already are many of those, and quite a few people collect them. The Eiffel Tower logo and watermark on each note suggest they have something to do with France and yes, that is where they come from. The first ones, issued about two years ago, depicted various French sites; in 2016 they went international.

The zero euro notes are printed by Oberthur, one of the companies that produce actual euro notes, but of course they differ from "real money" in various regards. Despite the "face value", they are not given away but visitors/collectors can buy them. Prices and issue volumes vary, depending on how popular the places are, but expect a minimum price of 2 euro and a volume of roughly 5,000 to 10,000 per issue.

Attached are the two with Düsseldorf themes (the AquaZoo note will have a serial number too; this is from a presentation). The other side is the same for all issues - in 2015 it showed various French monuments, in 2016 you got the Eiffel Tower, Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Manneken Pis in Brussels, Colosseum in Rome, Elizabeth Tower with the Big Ben clock in London, and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. This year's notes have the Belém Tower in Lisbon instead of the Elizabeth Tower.

Some info from Wikipedia in German: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/0-Euro-Schein
This is the site of the issuer: https://www.billets-touristiques.com/
... with a list of notes issued so far: https://www.billets-touristiques.com/liste
(click on "+ d'infos" to get more info about the particular note)

Christian

[malj1]

Interesting! I see there are 18 pages of notes listed, quite a large collecting range.

[Figleaf]

I saw them in several locations and they always looked very good. No wonder if they were done by Oberthur.

Peter

[chrisild]

Just read that the euro is about to "Go West". Well, this zero euro thing will be issued in May, according to a poster at emuenzen.de, except that the site it promotes is in Virginia Beach, VA ... United States.

Christian

[Bimat]

Souvenir banknote featuring a tank sold out in record time

The SNP Museum issued a banknote with a zero nominal value on genuine euro-banknote paper with several security elements.

24. May 2018 at 23:46  | COMPILED BY SPECTATOR STAFF

Inspired by France, the Banská Bystrica-based Slovak National Uprising (SNP) Museum issued an official euro souvenir banknote in a limited edition of 5,000 copies. The interest in these banknotes was enormous when 3,000 copies sold out in the record time of two hours and 15 minutes, on the occasion of Victory over Fascism Day on May 8. An additional 1,000 notes were set aside for the foreign market and the last 1,000 copies were distributed all over Slovakia and the Czech Republic based on email orders, leaving hundreds of people dissatisfied.

"With regards to the huge interest from the public in Slovakia, as well as abroad, the SNP Museum plans to issue additional editions of the banknotes," said Dalibor Lesník from the press department of the museum, as cited by the TASR newswire. "Collectors and visitors can thus look forward to a comprehensive collection of individual limited editions."

The souvenir banknote, featuring the SNP Memorial and the LT vz. 38 tank which successfully took part in fighting during the Slovak National Uprising, was printed on genuine euro-banknote paper. It bears many of the protective elements that are used on real banknotes and like real banknotes, each one is unique thanks to its numbering. Its nominal value is zero and they were sold for €2.

The issuing of official euro souvenir banknotes featuring the most famous cultural and historical monuments or attractive tourist sights of individual countries was launched in France in 2015.

Source: Spectator

[chrisild]

Amazing how much attention these get, even though there are so many different issues. Yesterday for example we had our annual Japan Day here in Düsseldorf, with great but also annual fireworks - and guess what, a zero euro note was issued for that. (Around here they usually cost €3 per piece.) In a German coin forum, almost half the new topics are about €0 issues these days.

There already are a few with designs showing buildings or monuments in Slovakia. Some of them can be had now, others will be available in June/July: http://www.eurosouvenir.sk/bankovky/eurosouvenir-bankovky.html

Christian

[Figleaf]

I am not so amazed. They are tasteful, well executed, not expensive and they don't have the official and heavy-handed pretensions of "products" of state mints. They are somewhere between e.g. the US president quarters and the Shell space tokens. They combine the strong points of both: educational, easy to store, fun to research and avoid the weakness of both: shallow commercialism, hot-air complete-ism and pretending to be issued for a financial purpose.

There's nothing against discussing them here. On the contrary...

Peter

[Bimat]

SLOVAKIA MANAGED TO RELEASE A BILL WITH AN ERROR

Rick Hadson | June 4, 2018

In the Slovak Republic printed in denominations of Euro "Bratislava castle" on the front side of which contains a grammatical error, reports the Chronicle.info with reference to unc.ua.

This bill was 0 Euro the authors of the project presented the Bratislava castle overlooking the Danube, which is included in the list of national cultural monuments of Slovakia.

As it became known, under the main image on the banknote the inscription "Bratislavsky hrad" omitted the letter "s" (writing on the bill "Bratislavky hrad").

Such errors are very rare, and most of it is not a bug, but a simple typo. Nevertheless, the data of the banknote enjoys high popularity not only among tourists but also among collectors.

Recall, the circulation of banknotes of 5 000 pieces.

Source: Q Telegram

[chrisild]

There is also a "Chinese" zero euro note with a portrait of Lenin. Instead of ILYICH it says LLYICH ...
https://www.billets-touristiques.com/billet-812

(Then again, the actually issued "note" may differ from that sample. So perhaps this gets fixed.)

Christian

[Bimat]

Euro Note Souvenir: Ireland's First '0 Euro Banknote' Officially Released

August 14, 2018 04:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time

HEADFORD, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Euro Note Souvenir, a Galway based company, has launched the first '0 Euro' banknote for Ireland this month. The banknote, also referred to as Euro Souvenir, shows the picture of a Celtic harp and a map of Ireland and its counties, and marks the beginning of the introduction of the Euro Souvenir concept in Ireland as an Irish souvenir or Irish gift.

The Euro Souvenir note looks and feels like a real Euro banknote, and with the Celtic harp and the map of Ireland, one could think of it as an official Irish banknote. The note carries even security features such as watermark, hologram, microprint, security thread and the symbols that appear only under UV light.

The "Euro Souvenir" is a new souvenir or merchandise concept for the tourism sector and visitor attractions. The note can be personalized with a picture of an attraction, event or building, like built heritage, a museum or a zoo, and marketed to visitors and tourists via an ATM-like machine or counter displays.

"All that is needed for the production of the personalized banknote is a photo, an image or drawing of what should appear on it," says Sara Medwed, Head of customer Service at Euro Note Souvenir.

The '0 Euro Souvenir' concept already exists in eight EU countries. It started in France, where it was invented by French entrepreneur and innovator Richard Faille in 2015, who was successfully dealing with souvenir coins before he invented the 0 Euro banknote. The concept was then carried to Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, where it was very successfully introduced by individual businesses.

Ireland will be one of the next countries to welcome the '0 Euro Souvenir' as an Irish gift, and personalized banknotes with Irish locations can be produced from January 2019 to be ready for the start of the new tourist season. Not only do tourists like this new type of souvenir, but also people who collect the 0 Euro notes as a hobby, like coins or stamps.

"There are in fact large communities of collectors in the other countries who collectively order their required amounts," says Peter Schneider, the founder of Euro Note Souvenir. "Of the five thousand notes produced in the first batch, almost half of them were sold to collectors even before they were available in the market," adds Schneider.

The company offers the souvenir banknote with the Celtic harp via their web shop for 4.99 EUR a piece, but also seeks business partners in Ireland, such as souvenir and gift shops interested in selling the souvenir locally.

The '0 Euro Souvenir' banknotes are approved by the European Central Bank (ECB) and printed by Oberthur Fiduciary in Switzerland, which is an official Euro banknote printing partner of the ECB. It takes about 8 weeks to produce a banknote with a new picture, while reorders of an existing banknote take 4 weeks.

For more information, please visit: http://www.euronotesouvenir.ie

Source: Business Wire

[Bimat]

Last week, I saw some (possibly Slovakian) €0 banknotes with fancy serial numbers being offered for €70 each or so...and was quite amused to see that people were actually buying them. This looks like a lucrative business!

Aditya

[chrisild]

They sure are nice souvenirs, some very well designed, others ... Well, I hope that there will, in the future, be "Irish notes" that feature historic sites and natural monuments.

Not sure whether Oberthur has a printing facility in Switzerland. Oh, and of course there already is a catalog for zero euro notes. Trilingual (de, en, fr), sample pages here. I doubt such a project makes a lot of sense - that book will probably grow even faster than a euro coin catalog, hehe.

Christian

[Bimat]

€0 banknotes from Monaco are also out. These banknotes depict portrait of Princess Grace Kelly.

Aditya

[Bimat]

We now have €0 banknotes from Belgium depicting Atomium in Brussels.

Aditya

[Bimat]

Saw Turkish (?) €0 banknote depicting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk the other day...Erdoğan next?

Aditya