10 Francs - Sceau des Grimaldi essai

Essais from the Monnaie de Paris are official trial strikes produced for approval purposes, never released into general circulation. This piece was struck ahead of the circulating bimetallic issue introduced for Monaco — one of the earliest applications of bimetallic technology in Monégasque coinage, at a moment when the format was still being refined across multiple European mints simultaneously.

Essais typically survive in very small quantities, as production runs were limited to what the approval process required.