Cattaro — modern Kotor, in Montenegro — issued this coin during the brief and peculiar interlude when the city passed between empires. Seized from the French by a combined Anglo-Montenegrin force in 1813, it was administered as a provisional municipality before Austrian control was confirmed by the Congress of Vienna. This 5 Francs was struck during that transitional period, when local authorities had neither fully severed ties with Napoleonic monetary conventions nor yet come under Habsburg monetary law.
The issue is rare precisely because the window of its production was so narrow — a matter of months.
Cattaro — modern Kotor, in Montenegro — issued this coin during the brief and peculiar interlude when the city passed between empires. Seized from the French by a combined Anglo-Montenegrin force in 1813, it was administered as a provisional municipality before Austrian control was confirmed by the Congress of Vienna. This 5 Francs was struck during that transitional period, when local authorities had neither fully severed ties with Napoleonic monetary conventions nor yet come under Habsburg monetary law.
The issue is rare precisely because the window of its production was so narrow — a matter of months.