1⁄48 Ecu with short wick - Louis XIV

The "mèche courte" portrait of Louis XIV — giving this type its name — was used only briefly in the early years of his reign, before the young king's image was updated as he aged. Louis was just five years old when he acceded to the throne in 1643, meaning this coin was struck during the regency of Anne of Austria, with Cardinal Mazarin effectively directing the monarchy. The forty-eighth écu was the smallest silver denomination in French royal coinage, a practical fraction for petty transactions at a moment when France was still financing the Thirty Years' War.