5 Francs Essai

Anjouan's 1891 coinage project never reached circulation. The Sultanate was a French protectorate by treaty from 1886, and these essais were struck in anticipation of a formal colonial monetary system that France ultimately never implemented for the island — metropolitan and Madagascar-issue coinage continued to serve instead. Lec#7 documents this as a pattern piece, almost certainly struck in Paris, with silver-plated bronze substituting for the approved metal as was standard practice for French colonial trial strikes of the period.