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1 Cent Pattern

Issuer Paris Mint
Year 1931
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Value 1 Cent (0.01 ICFP)
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Obverse description Left-facing laureate bust of Marianne, the allegorical personification of the French Republic, wearing a winged Phrygian helmet adorned with a wheat-ear spray and an olive branch; her neck is truncated at the lower field. The engraver's name MORLON appears in small capitals below the truncation at the left. The circular legend REPVBLIQVE FRANÇAISE arcs around the periphery, with REPVBLIQVE rising along the left and FRANÇAISE descending along the right, rendered in bold raised capitals characteristic of Morlon's Marianne type.
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Obverse lettering REPVBLIQVE FRANÇAISE MORLON
(Translation: French Republic)
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Additional information

The French Indochina cent patterns of 1931 were produced at Paris as the administration explored a lighter, more economical alloy for colonial coinage — aluminium bronze being cheaper to source and strike than the cupro-nickel compositions then in use. Most were never approved for circulation, leaving surviving examples almost exclusively in collector hands rather than worn into obscurity by decades of Indochinese trade.

The Lec-Indo#103 reference places this among a small cluster of related essais from the same period, several of which differ only in alloy or edge treatment.

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