Florin d'or à la reine - Philippe IV

Philippe IV struck this coin in direct imitation of the Florentine florin, which had dominated European trade finance since the 1250s. The French crown needed a gold coinage credible enough to circulate internationally at a moment when Philippe was bleeding his treasury dry through war with Flanders — the same conflict that had already produced the catastrophe at Courtrai in 1302. Matching Florentine purity was a deliberate political and commercial calculation, not a technical accident.

The "à la reine" designation distinguishes it from the earlier "à l'écu" type within Philippe's gold florin series — Dy 210 places it in a tightly sequenced group issued across a reign defined by monetary manipulation elsewhere.