Essai de 1/2 franc, Banque du Peuple

The Banque du Peuple was a short-lived cooperative credit institution founded by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in early 1848, conceived as a vehicle for interest-free mutual credit and the eventual abolition of money as a tool of exploitation. It never opened for business in any meaningful sense — Proudhon was arrested in June 1848, and the project collapsed almost immediately. This essai exists as a physical artifact of a financial institution that never actually functioned, struck in brass rather than the silver of official Monnaie de Paris production.