20 Francs - Petain Simon

KM#Pn107 designates this as a pattern strike, not a circulating issue — the Petain Simon 20 Francs never entered production. The Vichy regime commissioned multiple competing designs during 1941 as it worked to replace Republican coinage with imagery aligned to the National Revolution, and most were rejected outright. Aluminium bronze was itself a concession to wartime metal shortages, with nickel and copper increasingly diverted to German industrial demands under the armistice terms.

The Simon attribution refers to the engraver Lucien Simon, whose submitted design lost out in the selection process.