5 ECU Alexander the Great

Greece issued this ECU-denominated piece in 1994 as part of a broader European wave of ECU collector coinage that flourished in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the Maastricht Treaty's implementation made the ECU's successor — the euro — inevitable and the fantasy ECU series politically awkward. The pieces were never legal tender in any transactional sense; they existed primarily for the collector and souvenir market, exploiting a loophole in which member and associate states could issue ECU-denominated coins without breaching monetary agreements.

Alexander was a natural choice for Greek ECU issues — his conquests spread Hellenic culture from Macedonia to the Indus, and Athens was making a pointed claim on his legacy at a moment when the newly independent Republic of Macedonia was doing the same.