1.5 Euro - Carcassonne

Carcassonne issued this brass piece in 1997 as a local commercial currency — a *bon de circulation* redeemable within the town's merchant network, a practice that saw a quiet revival across French provincial towns during the 1990s as municipalities experimented with tourism-linked scrip. The medieval citadel draws roughly three million visitors annually, and the local authority leaned into that traffic.

The 1.5 euro denomination predates France's adoption of the single currency by five years, making it an early speculative peg to the incoming unit rather than a legal tender claim.