1 Sol - Louis XV

The Sol issued under Louis XV during the 1720s emerged directly from the financial wreckage of John Law's Mississippi Scheme collapse. Law's system had catastrophically devalued French paper currency, and the Crown's desperate recoinage efforts of the early 1720s — involving repeated revaluations and forced exchanges — made copper small change politically charged in a way it rarely is. Ordinary French subjects had been burned badly enough by paper that even copper specie was viewed with suspicion.

Production was spread across numerous provincial mints simultaneously, creating significant die variation across the series. Mint marks from this period require careful attribution.