5 Centimes - Marie-Adélaïde Essai

Luxembourg's 1915 coinage is inseparable from the German occupation that began in August 1914. The occupying authorities permitted the Grand Duchy to maintain its own monetary administration, and Marie-Adélaïde remained on the throne — a decision that would later cost her the regency when postwar critics accused her of insufficient resistance. This essai, a trial piece rather than a circulating issue, was produced to test designs and specifications under those constrained wartime conditions. Whether it ever reached serious production consideration is unclear; circulating 5 centimes of this reign are themselves scarce.