20 Euros - Tours and Touraine

Issued by NAFSEP, the French national body that coordinated local euro-denominated scrip ahead of the single currency's 1999 launch, this piece belongs to a series of privately issued "euro anticipation" tokens produced across French regions in the mid-1990s. The Tours and Touraine issue drew on the Loire Valley's long association with the French crown — the region served as a de facto seat of royal power through much of the 15th and 16th centuries, when the court preferred its châteaux to Paris. These are not legal tender in any jurisdiction and never were.