France 1766-T ecu

from the Mountain Groan Collection

This specimen is an écu au bandeau of Louis XV struck in 1767 at the Nantes mint. The long reign of Louis XV (1715-74) saw many coin types come and go. The first part of the reign, while Louis was a child, was a period of monetary confusion and manipulation. The reforms of Cardinal Fleury (1726) stabilized the fiscal situation until the total collapse at the eve of the Revolution. Numismatically, this period can be divided into three epochs, marked by the écu aux branches d’olivier (1726-40), the écu au bandeau (1740-72) and the écu à la vielle tête (1770-74). This specimen belongs to the middle period.

The écu au bandeau.

The iconic coin of the period is the écu, struck in large numbers at twenty-nine mints. Clairand^[2] estimates 195 million were struck 1726-74, a number which must rival the production of pesos in Spanish American mints. Its divisions were the ½, 1/5, 1/10 and 1/20 écu, struck in modest quantities. The écu was worth $1.10 in the USA before the Civil War.

The écu au bandeau is the most popular coin of the ancien regime among collectors. Alhéritière and Deswelle^[1] reported 575 dates for this type in 2004; three more have been published since. An additional 215 dates may exist; records show they were minted but no one has found one. Four dates are known which the archives state should not exist. Of these only two dozen or so are classed as common (20 or more examples known), while 481 dates are known from five or fewer examples.

Mints and Mintmarks.

Most of the mints were in small towns, operated to provide patronage for local politicians. In gold, Paris, Strasbourg, Lille and Pau were the most important; in silver, Bayonne, Paris, Pau, Aix and Rennes predominated. France has little bullion ore within its boundaries, so most of the silver came from melted foreign coin, especially Spanish. The gold to silver ratio in France was 14.5:1, favoring silver.

Recorded mintage: 38,595, priced about triple the common date such as 1767-L.

Specification:

Obverse: LUD.XV.D.G.FR ET NAV. REX. (for Pau, NA.RE. BD), king’s head left, hair tied with a ribbon;
reverse: SIT NOMEN DOMINI BENEDICTUM (date), oval shield of France, crowned, between two olive branches tied with ribbon, mintmark below; edge lettered DOMINE SALVUM FAC REGEM.
composition: silver, 11 deniers (.917 fine), 8.3 pieces to the mark (29.488 g), face value 6 livres, 39 mm diameter. Engraved by Joseph-Charles Röettiers.

Catalog reference: Dav-1331, Dr/4 № 820, Dr/2 № 584, KM 523.22.

Sources:

^[1]Alhéritière, Edouard, and Ludovic Deswelle, "Les écus de Louis XV de bandeau: point de situation," Numismatique et Change, No. 349 [Mai 2004], pp. 61-63.
^[2]Clairand, Armand, Monnaies de Louis XV, Le temps de la Stabilité Monetaire, 1726-1774, Paris: Maison Platt, 1996.
Droulers, Frédéric, Répertoire General des Monnaies de Louis XIII à Louis XVI (1610-1792), 4e édition. Paris: AFPN, 2009.
Duplessy, Jean, Les Monnaies Françaises Royales de Hugues Capet à Louis XVI (987-1793), Tome II, 2e édition, Paris: Maison Platt, 1999.
George Sobin, Jr., The Silver Crowns of France, 1640-1973. Teaneck, NJ: Richard Margolis, 1974.
Davenport, John S., European Crowns, 1700-1800, 2nd Ed., London: Spink & Son, 1964.
Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.

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France 1766-T ecu

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