Denier - Ralph Orleans mint, Odonic monogram

Ralph (Raoul) of Burgundy seized the West Frankish throne in 923 after Robert I was killed at the Battle of Soissons, making him the only non-Carolingian king to strike coinage still bearing the Carolingian Odonic monogram — a deliberate political statement of continuity from a man whose own dynastic legitimacy was genuinely contested. Orleans was among the more productive mints of his reign, and issues from it are better documented than those from several of his other minting centers. The monogram itself derives from the cipher introduced under Charlemagne and carried through successive Carolingian reigns largely unchanged.