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| Issuer | France |
|---|---|
| Year | 1873 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Milled |
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| Obverse description | Circular outer legend reading NATION FRANCAISE around the periphery, with the date 1873 positioned at the bottom. A beaded inner circle encloses the two-line inscription CONTRE-MONNAIE in the central field. Small floral or rosette ornaments flank the date at the lower left and right, serving as decorative separators. The overall design is plain and typographic, characteristic of a privately issued trade or advertising token of the period. |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse lettering | LA LOI PUNIT LE CONTREFACTEUR 50 CENTIMES DEPOSE |
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| Additional information |
The "Modul" designation here is the tell. This is not a circulation strike but a module piece — a test or presentation striking produced to demonstrate a proposed compositional alloy, almost certainly connected to the French Monnaie de Paris experiments of the early 1870s following the catastrophic silver shortages and monetary disruption of the Franco-Prussian War. Copper-aluminium alloys were seriously evaluated as substitutes during this period before France ultimately retained silver for subsidiary coinage.
The F#189 variant attribution suggests this diverges from the standard type in some recorded but unspecified way — likely alloy ratio, edge treatment, or die state specific to essay production.