20 Centimes - Muhammad VIII Essai

Tunisia's 1945 coinage program sat in an odd administrative limbo — the Protectorate government was nominally restored under the Bey after Liberation, but France's monetary authority was simultaneously rebuilding its own minting capacity after the Occupation had gutted it. These essais were struck at Paris as pattern trials, never approved for circulation, which is precisely why they survive predominantly in mint state. Muhammad VIII al-Amin had only just been installed as Bey in mid-1943, making this one of the earliest trial strikings to bear his name.