Everything recorded about the first-series 5 euro banknote: 121 documented runs, each with its printing works, signature, plate, sheet position, rarity grade and GEM-UNC quotation. Search or filter the table, then read the notes below it.
121 of 121 rows shown
Scroll sideways to see every column.
No record matches this search.
Rarity on the Cartamoneta catalogue scale: C3 extremely common, C2 very common, C common, NC not common, then R to R5. Italic grades come from the catalogue itself and mark the runs it does not price. Quotations are for gem uncirculated banknotes (GEM-UNC).
How to read the table
It holds the 121 records the cleaned extract keeps for this denomination. Twenty rows load at a time; the search box and the filters always run over the whole list, so a match is found first and the rows around it are loaded afterwards.
Rarity uses the scale printed in the Cartamoneta catalogue, from C3 (extremely common) up to R5 (of the highest rarity). It is derived from how far a run sits above the ordinary level for this denomination, because the ratio between face value and catalogue reference is not comparable across denominations. Where the catalogue supplies its own grade instead of a price, that grade is shown in italics and no quotation appears.
Every quotation is for a gem uncirculated banknote — GEM-UNC, the top of the grading scale — and for no other condition. It is the Cartamoneta.com reference: the catalogue figure with the published mark-up for this denomination, rounded up to the next step. From a threshold upwards — €500 on the 5 euro, €750 on the 10, €1,000 on the 20, €1,500 on the 50, €1,750 on the 100 — the mark-up gives way to a 10% reduction, because high-value examples are placed by negotiation rather than at a premium; the 200 and 500 euro are never reduced. A circulated example is worth less, often much less. The figure is an indicative reference and not an offer, an appraisal or a statement about the condition of any particular banknote.
The 5 euro is the note most people handled first and thought about least. It is the smallest of the seven, the one that wears out fastest, and the one that has spent twenty years being folded into pockets rather than collected. That is exactly why its catalogue is more interesting than its face value suggests.
Two signatures, never three
The first series can carry the signature of Willem F. Duisenberg, Jean-Claude Trichet or Mario Draghi. The 5 euro is the exception: it stops at Trichet. By the time Draghi took office in November 2011 the Europa-series 5 euro was already in preparation, and the original design was never re-signed for him.
That single fact removes a whole branch from the catalogue and makes the remaining rows easier to read. A first-series 5 euro is either a Duisenberg or a Trichet, and the printing year narrows it further.
Thirteen printing works for one small note
The extract records thirteen printing works and fifteen country associations for this denomination alone, with printing years running from 2001 to 2011. A note associated with Slovakia, Malta or Cyprus was not printed in those countries: the association follows the issue, while the letter in the production code follows the works that actually ran the plates.
Because the 5 euro was printed in sixty-note sheets, its position codes cover the widest grid of the series. It is also the denomination where a well-preserved uncirculated example is hardest to find, since almost nobody set one aside.
Where the identification code sits on the 5 euro
A 5 euro that survived unfolded is a small piece of luck. The table below says which run it belongs to; the note itself, and its condition, say the rest.
