2½ ECU - Beatrix 12-1/2 Anniversary of Coronation and Visit to Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles

The ECU — European Currency Unit — was never legal tender in the Netherlands, but the Dutch Treasury produced a series of silver collector pieces denominated in it throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, riding demand from the growing European monetary unification movement. This piece commemorates Beatrix's 1992 visits to Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, timed to coincide with the twelfth-and-a-half anniversary of her coronation — a peculiarly Dutch milestone, as the rijksdeler tradition of celebrating half-anniversaries has deep roots in Dutch civic culture.

Struck in the year the Maastricht Treaty was signed, linking it obliquely to the very project the ECU denomination was meant to symbolize.