3 Euro Blue Mosque

Turkey's EU accession negotiations were formally opened in October 2005, but this piece predates that milestone by a year — issued when membership still seemed a genuine near-term possibility rather than an indefinitely deferred political question. The denomination itself, three euros struck by a non-EU member state, had no legal tender status anywhere in the eurozone and was aimed squarely at the collector and tourist markets.

Several countries outside the EU produced euro-denominated collector issues in the early 2000s, a practice the European Central Bank repeatedly objected to but lacked the jurisdiction to prevent.