1 euro / 7 francs de Blaye

One of dozens of privately issued "euro" notes circulated across French towns in the mid-1990s as a form of promotional currency and, deliberately, as a pressure campaign ahead of the European monetary transition. Municipalities and local associations printed these notes in limited runs, used them as exchange instruments at participating merchants, and sold them to collectors — a practice that occupied a grey area tolerated rather than formally sanctioned by the Banque de France.

Printing by the ITVF at Périgueux — the same facility responsible for French postage stamps and official fiscal documents — lends this note an unusually authoritative physical quality rare among the regional euro series. Bernard Veyri's engraving is the detail worth noting: a professional intaglio engraver working on what is formally a local promotional piece.