5 ECU Pau Casals

The ECU — European Currency Unit — was never legal tender in Spain but was issued by several member states throughout the 1990s as a quasi-official collector currency, anticipating the euro that would follow. Spain's cultural tribute series used the denomination to honor figures of international stature, and Casals was a pointed choice: the cellist had lived in self-imposed exile from Franco's Spain for decades, refusing to perform in any country that recognized the regime.

He died in 1973, two years before Franco, never returning to Catalonia.