1 ECU Montgolfier First Flight

The 1783 Montgolfier ascent at Versailles — witnessed by Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and a crowd estimated at 130,000 — was the first untethered hot-air balloon flight carrying living passengers: a sheep, a duck, and a rooster. Monaco's commemorative ECU issues of the 1990s belonged to a broader European collector series tied to the ECU currency unit, which never circulated as physical coinage but generated substantial revenue for small issuing states. The X# prefix in Krause confirms this piece's non-circulation status.