Double Tournois - Louis XIII Tours mint, 18th type

The 18th type of Louis XIII's double tournois represents one of the final evolutionary stages of a denomination that had been grinding through successive royal edicts since the 1570s — each reform an attempt to control rampant counterfeiting and unauthorized striking by provincial mints. Tours, as a historically important mint in the Loire valley, remained active through these copper issues even as many smaller ateliers were suppressed. By 1638, France was deep into the Thirty Years' War, with Richelieu directing finances toward military expenditure that left copper coinage production administratively secondary.