1/2 Gold Ecu - Henry IV 1st type, XPS

Henry IV came to the throne after one of the most destructive civil conflicts in French history, and his monetary reforms were among the first serious attempts to stabilize a coinage that had been debased and counterfeited throughout the Wars of Religion. The XPS mint mark designates Bayonne, a city whose proximity to Spain made monetary integrity both politically and commercially critical. This half écu type was struck across a narrow window before the 1st type was superseded, which keeps surviving populations modest.

The Dy 1202A2 attribution distinguishes this from closely related emissions; Gadoury's 607B confirms the Bayonne assignment. Ciani 1506 groups it without the mint differentiation that later scholarship resolved.