Louis II issued this coin under genuinely constrained circumstances: Monaco had spent the war years under Italian and then German occupation, and the principality's finances were in disorder by 1945. Aluminium was the only practical option — strategic metals were still rationed or simply unavailable across postwar Europe.
The Gadoury reference places this alongside a small group of wartime and immediate postwar Monaco issues that never saw large circulation figures. Louis II died in 1949, leaving no legitimate heir; the succession crisis that followed ultimately brought Rainier III to the throne.
Louis II issued this coin under genuinely constrained circumstances: Monaco had spent the war years under Italian and then German occupation, and the principality's finances were in disorder by 1945. Aluminium was the only practical option — strategic metals were still rationed or simply unavailable across postwar Europe.
The Gadoury reference places this alongside a small group of wartime and immediate postwar Monaco issues that never saw large circulation figures. Louis II died in 1949, leaving no legitimate heir; the succession crisis that followed ultimately brought Rainier III to the throne.