5 Francs Essai

The 1948 essai issues from the Monnaie de Paris were struck as pattern pieces for evaluation, never approved for general circulation. France's postwar monetary situation was chaotic enough that multiple competing designs were submitted and tested that year, most of them quietly shelved. The KM#E3 designation places this among a small run of copper-nickel trials produced in strictly limited quantities — typically a few hundred pieces at most — distributed primarily to collectors and ministry officials rather than the public.