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20 Francs Piedfort Essai
| Issuer | Algeria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1949 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Medal alignment ↑↑ |
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| Obverse description | Left-facing laureate bust of Marianne, the allegorical personification of the French Republic, rendered in high relief in the classic style of Pierre Turin. Her hair is pulled back and crowned with an olive wreath, with individual leaves finely detailed. The engraver's signature P. TURIN appears in small characters below the truncation. The circular legend REPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE runs along the periphery, divided left and right of the bust, within a toothed inner border. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Algeria's 1949 coinage program was administered under French authority, with essai and piéfort strikes produced at the Paris Mint for official evaluation and archive purposes — never intended for circulation. The piéfort format, struck at roughly double the standard flan thickness, was a distinctly French institutional practice applied across the franc zone to create definitive reference specimens for government files.
Lec#46 places this among the earliest documented piéfort essais for post-war French Algeria, a period when currency reform discussions were intensifying ahead of the broader CFA and overseas territory monetary restructuring of the early 1950s.