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Vaquette - Louis XIII 2nd type
| Issuer | France |
|---|---|
| Year | 1612-1630 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered |
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| Obverse description | The quartered field displays two cows passant in cantons 1 and 3, and two crowned royal monograms (double L) in cantons 2 and 4. A circular Latin legend surrounds the design, reading the king's title and name. The overall composition is characteristic of the small billon coinage struck for the Béarn and Navarre regions under Louis XIII. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A plain cross is centered within a trefoiled quatrefoil frame, with a date numeral placed at the terminal of each arm of the cross, together spelling out the year of issue. The design is enclosed within a circular Latin legend. The trefoiled quatrefoil border is a distinctive feature of this vaquette type, lending it an ornamental Gothic character consistent with the minor billon coinage of the early Bourbon period. |
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| Additional information |
The vaquette was a desperate administrative stopgap — a coin so debased it barely qualified as silver, struck to address chronic shortages of small change that plagued French provincial markets in the early seventeenth century. Louis XIII inherited a monetary system already strained by his father's wars, and these pieces circulated alongside a chaotic mix of foreign copper and counterfeit liards that authorities repeatedly failed to suppress.
Duvivier's corpus places this second type across nearly two decades of production, suggesting continuous demand rather than a single minting episode.