6 Sols - Louis XV

The 6 Sols of 1731–32 was struck specifically for circulation in the French Windward Islands — Martinique, Guadeloupe, and their dependencies — under a royal ordinance that acknowledged colonial commerce was being strangled by chronic coin shortages. Ordinary metropolitan French coinage drained back to Europe or was hoarded, leaving plantation economies to run on credit, barter, and whatever foreign silver could be seized or traded. Paris responded with a dedicated colonial issue rather than simply shipping more domestic coin.

The series was short-lived. Metropolitan merchants objected to the preferential terms built into colonial monetary arrangements, and the issue was not continued after 1732.