The Morlon coinage family takes its name from designer Bazor's colleague André Morlon, whose allegorical head became the workhorse of French small denomination production through the 1930s and into the Vichy period. This particular piece is a hybrid pattern — an essai struck with mismatched dies from different intended pairings — a practice the Paris Mint employed deliberately when evaluating alloy and die combinations before committing to a production standard. The copper-aluminium composition was itself under active evaluation in 1930, as France sought lighter, cheaper alternatives following postwar metal cost pressures.
The Morlon coinage family takes its name from designer Bazor's colleague André Morlon, whose allegorical head became the workhorse of French small denomination production through the 1930s and into the Vichy period. This particular piece is a hybrid pattern — an essai struck with mismatched dies from different intended pairings — a practice the Paris Mint employed deliberately when evaluating alloy and die combinations before committing to a production standard. The copper-aluminium composition was itself under active evaluation in 1930, as France sought lighter, cheaper alternatives following postwar metal cost pressures.