Trial pieces for the 1923 Romanian leu coinage were produced as the Banca Națională a României worked to establish a postwar monetary footing following the dramatic territorial expansion of Greater Romania after 1918. Lead was the standard medium for such essais — cheap, easy to strike, and sufficiently close in specific gravity to silver to test die pressure and flow without wasting precious metal. KM# Pn10 is among several documented pattern and trial strikings from this period, most produced in very small numbers and never intended to leave the mint.
Trial pieces for the 1923 Romanian leu coinage were produced as the Banca Națională a României worked to establish a postwar monetary footing following the dramatic territorial expansion of Greater Romania after 1918. Lead was the standard medium for such essais — cheap, easy to strike, and sufficiently close in specific gravity to silver to test die pressure and flow without wasting precious metal. KM# Pn10 is among several documented pattern and trial strikings from this period, most produced in very small numbers and never intended to leave the mint.