25 ECU - Beatrix Thorbecke; Pattern strike

The ECU never became circulating currency — the eurozone's actual transition coin was the euro, introduced in 1999, making 1998 effectively the last year any issuer bothered with ECU-denominated pieces. This pattern strike honors Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, the 19th-century liberal statesman who drafted the Dutch constitution of 1848, which permanently shifted power from the crown to parliament — one of the more consequential constitutional revisions in European history without a revolution attached to it.

Pattern strikes in this series were produced in extremely limited numbers for official presentation and collector purposes, never intended for any payment system that would itself never materialize.