Commemorative 5 euro 'De Ruyter', first striking
2007 ・ silver ・ 21st century ・ Royal Dutch Mint (this piece the first striking, held by the Rijksmuseum)
On 1 January 2002 euro notes and coins began to circulate, and on the 28th of the same month the gulden ended its long walk as legal tender. This piece is a commemorative 5 euro of that new age — on the face, the portrait of Admiral de Ruyter, hero of the sea in the 17th century, with the legend PAREL · SCHRIK, 'pearl and terror'; on the back, Queen Beatrix. The actual first striking (eerste slag) of 2007 went, just as it was, into the collection of the Rijksmuseum. The admiral who burned the English fleet on the Medway comes back on a euro coin — the Netherlands in an age without the gulden, telling over again, on its money, the memory of its own sea.