I have not seen this note before. I remember Boggs showing me the actual portrait engraving Hipschen did of him once, it was really nicely executed; now that is an item I wish I had. I just got two or three other unusual Boggs items offered to me as well, which seems to happen every time I sell one at auction. It will be a curiosity to see what happens with all the material in Boggs's studios.

NBNC was formed in order to obtain part of the European Bank printing contract. Utilizing some ex-United States Banknote Company personnel, the One Million Euro Commemorative was designed and printed in order to demonstrate that a US Security printer could provide the quality of a banknote printer.

I also provided special security paper to Boggs for years.

The piece is a Naples Bank Note design that Boggs showed me at the Orlando airport. He altered our One Million Euro note design and forged my signature. He made subtle changes to the note. For example, using "Apple Bank Note Company" instead of "Naples Bank Note Company".

Boggs included a front to back Register Mark in his design. On our website we purposely left out that security feature to be able to readily identify counterfeits. Basically it is a symbol, like a star on our note, that color is filled in on one side and no color on other side. It's located above the Treasurer's signature.

I thought Boggs had the piece so I'm not sure how it got on eBay.

I'm not aware of how this Euro note came about. I was with Boggs and Tom Hipschen at the meeting and handshake agreement to produce the engraving during the FUN convention in 1996. The casual meeting was held on 1/8/1996 at The Peabody. It was early in the morning. Boggs conducted the deposit on the transaction with a $1000 Project Pittsburgh note titled "Down Payment on a Portrait". The final transaction was paid for in Boggs Bills.

As I recall the engraved plate wasn't completed until 1998. I remember seeing the final plate and some Spider-Press prints from the plate in various colors. It was always Boggs' intention to have an engraved note produced with his portrait. The only image I was aware of utilizing this portrait was on the book.

Since Boggs' passing, collectors should be careful about unusual items offered relating to Boggs work. His work was counterfeited while he was alive by those hoping to make a quick profit.

It's fun to see an artist friend enjoying an afterlife.

Boggs would call me once in a while or visit me while traveling through Washington, but I never saw him more than once or twice a year. He wanted me to partner with him on many projects, but I was reluctant to put that much time into things that were essentially his artwork, not mine.

He pitched the portrait project many years ago as an exchange of artwork. I was never paid directly for it. I put in several hundred hours, and today creating something like that would cost $20,000 to $30,000. He pitched it at the time as an entry that I might make into the world of fine arts as I was looking towards retirement from my government job. There were other money artists involved, and there were several pieces of his own artwork created that included my name and even fingerprints. He even had a gallery arrangement in Florida. I probably never realized more than a couple of thousand dollars from any of it.

I hand printed working proofs and a few final proofs of my engraving for him on my own press at home utilizing security paper provided to him by Bob Bednar. It is a hand engraving made in the banknote manner on a piece of steel that was large enough to print a whole US Banknote sized piece of paper without showing a plate mark. He told me that the few prints that I gave him would go to his lawyers who were preparing a Supreme Court case to try and retrieve many of his artworks that were seized by the US Secret Service. Of course that challenge never went anywhere, and I heard no more of it. I assumed because of the paper size that he intended to paint or print artwork around my engraving to create some of his notes. I never saw the results.

I met Lawrence Weschler once at a book signing, and I was surprised to see the portrait appear on the cover of his book. I was never paid for that, either. I assume that Boggs gave it to him.

I unfortunately know nothing about this particular note. Is the portrait on this note printed in intaglio? If so, it would probably have been created with one of the proofs that I gave him. I assume not, as I once heard him tell another collector that the original engraved plate had been lost. I'm not sure why he maintained that.

As to using himself on his notes, I remember that one of his many ideas years ago was to create a series of bank notes similar in design the the US currency but different in every detail featuring artists for the portraits to be released at the face cost of whatever denominations the artists themselves would choose. For that program he wanted to use his own portrait on the $1 denomination so it would be the most common and available to anyone. I was still working at the BEP at the time. Such a thing would have been unthinkable for me then. Many friends there could not conceive how I could even talk to Boggs, let alone play with him in these artsy fashions.

Thanks for writing about this unusual piece- not that they are not ALL unusual, just that this represents his attempt at keeping up with monetary events like the Euro. I had never seen or heard of anything like this coming from him.