1/2 Ecu - Honore II

Honoré II secured the title "Prince of Monaco" from Louis XIII in 1612, ending decades of Spanish suzerainty — but the principality's coinage rights remained contested well into mid-century. These half-écus were struck during the final years of his reign, when Monaco was consolidating its identity as a sovereign French-aligned statelet squeezed between Savoy and the sea. The dies were almost certainly cut locally rather than by a royal French engraver, which accounts for the considerable variation in workmanship across surviving pieces.