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Essai de bronze au module de 2 centimes, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte 1851 Paris

Issuer Monnaie de Paris
Year 1851
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Diameter 20 mm
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Reverse description Plain field bearing a three-line inscription in bold serif capitals centred within the coin's field, reading ESSAI / DE BRONZE / 1851, with no additional devices or decorative elements. The date appears on the third line, and the entire design is framed by a toothed border matching that of the obverse, consistent with the essai trial piece format used to evaluate proposed bronze coinage.
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Reverse lettering ESSAI / DE BRONZE / 1851.
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Additional information

This is a pattern piece struck at Paris in the months before Louis-Napoléon's coup of 2 December 1851 — the event that dissolved the Legislative Assembly and set him on the path to becoming Napoléon III. The Second Republic's coinage was still being worked out administratively, and several module and composition trials were produced that year as the Monnaie de Paris prepared for a potential redesign that the coup rendered immediately political.

The piece never entered circulation. By early 1852 the imperial transition made republican coinage types obsolete before most essais had left the trial stage.

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