0 Euro - Monarchs of the Netherlands Willem I

EuroSouvenir notes occupy a strange corner of the hobby — legally issued, zero face value, and designed from the start for collectors rather than tills. The Willem I entry in the Monarchs of the Netherlands series was produced by Oberthur Fiduciaire, one of the few security printers with the credentials to satisfy the European Central Bank's requirements for souvenir notes authorized under its scheme.

Willem I abdicated in 1840 — the first Dutch monarch to do so — after his controversial marriage to the Belgian Catholic countess Henriette d'Oultremont provoked significant political opposition. That abdication, not battlefield defeat or revolution, ended his reign.