2½ ECU Infante Henrique

Issued as part of Portugal's ECU collector series, this piece commemorates Infante Dom Henrique — known internationally as Henry the Navigator — the 15th-century prince who organized and financed the early Portuguese voyages of Atlantic and African exploration from his base at Sagres. The ECU itself was a precursor accounting unit to the euro, and Portugal's use of it for commemorative issues in the early 1990s reflected the country's post-Carnation Revolution integration into European institutions, having joined the EEC in 1986.

The X# prefix in the reference indicates this is catalogued among Unusual World Coins rather than standard circulation issues — it was never legal tender in any transactional sense.