1 Piastre

The Piastre de Commerce was introduced by France in 1885 specifically to compete with the Mexican silver peso, which had dominated trade across Southeast Asia for decades. French merchants and colonial administrators found themselves at a structural disadvantage, paying a premium to acquire foreign coinage for everyday commerce. The new coin was pegged in weight and fineness to match what the regional market already trusted.

Early strikes from the Париж mint show inconsistent edge milling — a known production issue from the first years of the series, before tooling was standardized across the Poissy and Paris facilities sharing the workload.