½ euro de Tours et de Touraine [37]

Tours was one of several French municipalities that issued local brass "euros" in 1997 and 1998 as a promotional anticipation of the single currency, years before euro coinage became legal tender in 2002. These pieces had no official monetary status — they circulated as shop tokens by agreement among participating merchants in the city center, part of a broader wave of municipal enthusiasm that the Banque de France tolerated but did not sanction. Touraine's wine trade and its association with the Loire valley gave the city's issue a degree of local pride that similar tokens from less distinctive municipalities lacked.