10 Bits

Martinique's "bits" denominations were not minted from scratch but cut and countermarked from Spanish colonial cobs and milled coinage — a pragmatic response to chronic small-change shortages that plagued French Caribbean islands throughout the eighteenth century. The colonial administration simply could not keep pace with metropolitan France's erratic coin shipments, and local necessity drove improvisation.

The 1761–1764 window falls squarely within the Seven Years' War, during which Britain occupied Martinique from early 1762 until the 1763 Treaty of Paris returned the island to France. Coins countermarked during this occupation carry a complicated provenance — struck under French authority, circulating under British military governance.