1 ECU - Paneuropean Union Charles the Great

The Paneuropean Union, founded by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1923, was one of the earliest organized movements advocating for a unified European federation. By 1972, the project had long outlasted its interwar optimism, and this ECU issue — struck well before the European Currency Unit was formally adopted by the EEC in 1979 — represents the organization's deliberate attempt to preempt and shape the vocabulary of European monetary integration. Charlemagne was a calculated choice: a figure claimed simultaneously by French and German national traditions, making him politically neutral in a way few historical figures could manage.

These pieces carry the X# prefix in Krause precisely because no government authorized them — struck as fantasy or semi-official issues outside any sovereign minting framework.