Charles IV Commemorative Issue

Spain issued this commemorative in 2003 marking the bicentenary of the death of Charles IV — or rather, of his abdication and exile, since he died in Naples in 1819 having spent his final years a guest of Napoleon and later the Bourbons of the Two Sicilies. The note exists as a collector piece rather than a circulating instrument, which makes the presence of a security thread an interesting choice — functional anti-counterfeiting infrastructure on something never intended for trade.