7 euro de Strasbourg - PIEFORT [67]

Strasbourg's 1996 local currency experiment was one of several French municipal scrip initiatives that emerged in the mid-1990s, testing the boundaries of what communes could legally issue as exchange media without running afoul of Banque de France statutes. The piefort format — struck at double or triple the standard planchet thickness — was produced for collectors from the outset, never intended for circulation. This example in copper-aluminium-nickel mirrors the alloy used in contemporary French franc coinage, a deliberate choice to lend the issue a sense of monetary credibility it had no legal standing to claim.