20 Francs - Mohammed V Pattern

This piece was struck as a pattern (essai) in 1952, during the final turbulent years of French Protectorate authority over Morocco. Mohammed V had already begun consolidating nationalist sentiment around his person, and within three years the French would exile him to Madagascar — a miscalculation that backfired spectacularly, accelerating independence rather than suppressing it. Whether this pattern was ever seriously intended for circulation or simply produced as a monetary formality by the Paris Mint is unclear, but independence in 1956 rendered the question moot.