5 centimes Henri V

Henri V never ruled France. This piece is a pretender issue struck by Legitimist partisans loyal to Henri, Comte de Chambord, the Bourbon claimant who had been passed over when Louis-Philippe took the throne during the July Revolution of 1830. Produced privately — almost certainly outside France — it served the political fiction that the July Monarchy was illegitimate and that a Bourbon restoration was imminent. It wasn't.

The silver composition and careful execution suggest these were made to impress donors or rally wealthy sympathizers rather than circulate. Genuine circulation examples are essentially unknown.