15 ECUs - Elizabeth II Henry the Lion / Heinrich der Löwe

The ECU — European Currency Unit — was never legal tender in the conventional sense, existing only as a basket currency and accounting unit within the European Monetary System from 1979 onward. Gibraltar exploited a productive gap: by issuing ECU-denominated collector coins through the 1990s, it positioned itself ahead of anticipated European monetary integration while the unit still carried political prestige. When the euro replaced the ECU at a fixed 1:1 rate in 1999, the entire series became a footnote to a currency that circulated in ledgers but never in pockets.

Henry the Lion's appearance here reflects his enduring status in German civic memory — Duke of Saxony and Bavaria until his 1180 deposition by Frederick Barbarossa, after which he spent years in exile at the Plantagenet court of Henry II. The cross-dynastic connection gave Gibraltar's issuer just enough historical thread to pair him with Elizabeth II.