0 Euro Martin Luther

The 0 Euro souvenir note program was launched in France in 2016 by Richard Faille's EuroSouvenir company, licensing the Euro banknote format from the ECB for commemorative collector purposes — legal to produce precisely because they carry no monetary value and therefore fall outside currency law restrictions. The Martin Luther issue appeared ahead of the 500th anniversary of the 1517 posting of the Ninety-Five Theses, a date that generated an enormous wave of commemorative merchandise across German-speaking Europe.

Oberthur Fiduciaire printed the series, bringing genuine security printing infrastructure — including the hologram strip — to what is essentially a tourist article. That combination of real banknote production with zero monetary denomination remains the program's central curiosity.