In the fourth or fifth grade, a number of us kids were looking at close range at a map of Europe being held up by one of our teachers, and she asked whether we could find Belgium on the map. I’m not sure why she picked that country. Maybe because it wasn’t one of the more famed places that one of us might conceivably know, such as the UK or France or (West) Germany. Maybe she wanted to show us that Europe had other places besides the big countries.

Boom! I pointed my finger right at Belgium. I might have even tapped the map accidentally. I think she was surprised, but she didn’t know my map gazing habits, especially the atlas included with our encyclopaedia set, but also road maps and whatever else we had in the house.

So I knew about the Low Countries. Even more interesting than Belgium, I thought, was Luxembourg. Tiny Luxembourg got to be its own country. How about that. As fascinated as I was with maps in those days, I might not have realized there were even smaller European countries, though of course I learned about them eventually.

In my currency envelope, I have a 50 franc note, long demonetized, from the Grand Duchy, dated 1961.

It might actually be worth something in mint condition, but it’s worn and slightly torn, especially on the top edge of the note. That’s a sign that it was in one wallet for a long time, or a lot of wallets for a long time, with the note facing upward.

That’s Grand Duchess Charlotte on the obverse. She had a long reign, 1919 to 1964, and an even longer life, 1896 to 1985. Her grandson Henri is grand duke these days.

The reverse depicts one-quarter of the area of Luxembourg. Just kidding. But it is a pretty small country after all (I wasn’t wrong as a kid), at a shade less than 1,000 square miles. Rhode Island is larger. So is Brewster County, Texas — actually more than six times the size of Luxembourg — as are a lot of other places.

I haven’t found figures on how many 2½ guilder banknotes dated 1949 that De Nederlandsche Bank produced, but it must have been a lot. I know that because, at least as of Sunday, one was for sale on eBay for $1.30, plus 50 cents shipping. A valuable collector’s item, it’s not. Suits me.

The one for sale looks roughly in the same slightly worn condition as the one I have, which is on permanent loan from my mother. It’s a smallish note, 4½ inches by 2⅜ inches. My parents picked it up during their time in Europe in the mid-1950s.

The one to have, at least according to valuations on eBay, is the 1939 Dutch East Indies 25 guilders with Javanese dancers. Someone wants $400 for one of those.

I like the fact that its denomination is ​2½ guilders, not a quantity you see often, though for a long time the United States issued ​2½ dollar gold coins, the Quarter Eagle. Twee en een halvee gulden is also fun to say, though I probably don’t sound Dutch when I do.

If I’ve done my research correctly, a guilder was worth about a U.S. quarter in the mid-50s, valuing this note at 62 cents or so. Not as trifling a sum then as now  — its purchasing power was probably over $5 in current money — but not that much either.

Also of note on the obverse: Uitgegeven krachtens k.b. van 4 Februari 1943 en van 18 Mei 1945. My stab at a translation: issued by virtue of royal decree, February 4, 1943 and May 18, 1945. The Dutch government was in exile in the UK on that first date, including the famously strong-willed Queen Wilhelmina. I know that, anticipating an Allied victory, new Dutch currency was produced starting in 1943. Made in the United States as it happens, as the designs more than hints at.

The 1949 reserve has a Spirographic sort of design.

Queen Juliana appears on the 1949 note, new to the job since her mother abdicated the year before. Juliana was still on some of the coins in circulation when I visited the Netherlands in 1983, though she had abdicated three years earlier in favor of Beatrix, who stayed on as queen until 2014, past the time when guilders ceased to be money. I wonder if the Dutch miss their guilders.