25 Livres Assignat

The Caisse de l'Extraordinaire was not a central bank but a revolutionary administrative body, created to manage the proceeds from the forced sale of confiscated Church and émigré properties. Assignats were, at root, land warrants — notionally backed by those biens nationaux — which meant their value tracked public confidence in the sales programme as much as anything else. By late 1792 that confidence was eroding fast, and successive over-issues had already begun the inflationary spiral that would collapse the system entirely by 1796.

Gatteaux was among the most accomplished medallists of the period, and the engraving quality on this series reflects that pedigree — one of the few genuinely distinguished things about a currency that was already failing the people forced to use it.