50 Francs 'Hercules'

The Hercules 50 Francs was introduced in 1974 as France's first circulating silver coin of significant size since the monetary disruptions of the mid-twentieth century — a deliberate policy decision by the French Treasury to reintroduce a substantive silver denomination into everyday commerce. It didn't last. Rising silver prices through the late 1970s pushed the metal value uncomfortably close to face value, and the series ended in 1980.

The design itself reaches back to Augustin Dupré's 1795 grouping, recycled across French coinage for nearly two centuries. Auguste Roty's late nineteenth-century adaptation is what appears here.