Pezzetta ou 3 sols - Honoré II

Honoré II struck these billon pezzette in the years immediately following his remarkable diplomatic coup of 1641, when he expelled the Spanish garrison that had occupied Monaco since 1605 and placed the principality under French protection via the Treaty of Péronne. The coin is a direct product of that realignment — Monaco now needed its own circulating small change that fit within the French monetary orbit rather than the Spanish one.

The 3 sols denomination mirrors contemporary French billon issues of the period. Survival in any decent state is genuinely uncommon; billon coinage of this weight and fineness circulated hard and corrodes readily.