Token - 400 Jaar Tulp ECU & Pre 1999 Euro

Issued to mark the 400th anniversary of the tulip's introduction to the Netherlands — traced to Carolus Clusius, who planted the first bulbs at the Leiden botanical garden in 1594 — this piece belongs to a category of Dutch ECU fantasy tokens that flourished in the early 1990s as European monetary union shifted from treaty language to tangible possibility. The ECU itself was never legal tender in the Netherlands but circulated freely as a unit of account and a collector vehicle.

The "Pre-Euro" designation reflects the liminal moment: Maastricht had been signed in 1992, the euro was scheduled but not yet real, and the Dutch mint capitalized on public curiosity about what monetary union would actually feel like in hand.