5 Centimes - Adolphe Essai

This is a pattern strike, not a circulating issue — "Essai" denotes an official trial piece submitted for approval, and Luxembourg's 1901 coinage reform generated several such pieces in metals that never reached production. The circulating 5 centimes of this period was struck in copper-nickel, making a silver essai at this weight an intentional departure, almost certainly produced to demonstrate die quality to the approving authority rather than to propose silver as the actual production metal.

Adolphe died in November 1905, and pieces bearing his name from this reform period saw limited production windows.