0 Euro - Château du Clos Lucé 500ème anniversaire

Souvenir zero-euro notes were introduced in 2015 as a collector-facing product, intentionally legal in form but never intended for payment. Oberthur Fiduciaire prints these to the same security specifications as circulating euro banknotes — including the intaglio printing and the EURion constellation — which is precisely why the European Central Bank tolerates them: a zero denomination cannot defraud anyone.

Clos Lucé in Amboise is where Leonardo da Vinci spent his final three years under the patronage of François I, dying there in 1519. The 500th anniversary of that death prompted a wave of French commemorative issues in 2019, this note among them.