1/2 Ecu - Honoré II

Honoré II secured the title "Prince of Monaco" from Louis XIII in 1633 — the first time that designation was formally used — after decades of Spanish suzerainty ended with Monaco's pivot to French protection under the 1641 Treaty of Péronne. These silver issues followed from that new political alignment, struck under a ruler who had effectively invented the principality's modern sovereign status through careful diplomatic maneuvering rather than military force.

Surviving examples in any grade are genuinely scarce. Monaco's mint output in the 1650s was limited by both the territory's size and the short window of Honoré II's coinage program before his death in 1662.