1 Millime Essai uniface revers sans mot essai

Tunisia's 1960 coinage program marked the young republic's first full autonomous issue under the Banque Centrale, established only in 1958 after the dissolution of the colonial monetary framework. This piece is an uniface reverse trial — struck without the obverse die engaged — produced during the design approval process before the type entered circulation. Such essais were standard practice in French-influenced minting traditions, where the Paris mint typically supplied Tunisia's coinage and required staged proofing at each production phase. The absence of the word "ESSAI" on this example suggests it predates or sits outside the formally distributed trial set, making it a working piece rather than a presentation strike.