Somewhere in the attic I have a home-made poster of 12 old European currencies that I assembled, in a fit of nostalgia, just before they were all made obsolete by the appearance of the euro at the stroke of midnight on December 31 2001.
The old notes have portrayals of real people and places on them; the Greek drachma bears a picture of the ruins of Olympia, the French franc a portrait of Paul Cézanne. The euros that replaced them are decorated with buildings that look vaguely European but actually correspond to nowhere in particular.
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