0 Euro Fundação Eça de Queiroz

Eça de Queirós — often bracketed with Flaubert and Zola as one of the great European realist novelists of the nineteenth century — remains surprisingly underknown outside the Lusophone world. The foundation bearing his name is based at the Quinta de Vila Nova, his family estate in Baião, where he spent summers and eventually died in 1900. These zero-euro souvenir notes, printed by Oberthur Fiduciaire under license from the European Central Bank, have no legal tender status anywhere — their entire existence is commemorative, aimed squarely at the cultural tourism market that emerged around such issues in France before spreading across Europe after 2015.