20 Francs Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, trial

Trial strikes — Probeprägungen in Swiss parlance — were produced by Swissmint to test dies and planchet specifications before committing to full production runs. This 1998 silver piece honoring poet and novelist Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was part of that process; the commemorative program itself marked the centenary of Meyer's death. Meyer spent much of his adult life managing severe depression and spent years in a sanatorium near Préfargier before producing the bulk of his literary output relatively late — his novella Das Leiden eines Knaben appeared when he was in his mid-fifties.