France 1792-D 12 deniers

from the Mountain Groan Collection

This twelve deniers, struck during the early stages of the French Revolution, before the arrest and trial of the king, was meant to supersede the sol of the ancien régime. It was struck at sixteen different mints and is very common in low grade. Many of these were produced by subcontractors outside the regular mint system; this specimen was struck at Dijon, not Lyon, as indicated by the dot after the "D" mintmark. This specimen is definitely brass.

The provisional mints of the Revolution.^[1] Responding to an acute coin shortage caused by the collapse of the assignats, the National Assembly late in 1791 authorized the establishment of temporary mints to supplement the output of base metal coinage by the regular mints. These provisional mints were to be close to existing mints and supervised by mint personnel. These requirements were ignored. The following mints are known to have produced three, six and twelve denier pieces and two sols: Convent des Barnabites (in Paris, but outside the Mint), mintmark "A" with a dot; Arras, mintmark "W" with a dot; Besancon, mintmark "BB"; Clermont-Ferrand, mintmark "I" with a dot; Dijon, mintmark "D" with a dot; Metz (adjacent to the regular mint), mintmark "AA" with a dot; Roanne, mintmark "D"; and Saumur, mintmark "T" with a dot. Most of these mints were closed by the end of 1792 tho some may have operated into 1793.

Recorded mintage: unknown.

Specification: 12.23 g, copper, bronze or brass.

Catalog reference: KM 600.5, Gad-15.

Source:

Duplessy, Jean, Les Monnaies Françaises Royales de Hugues Capet à Louis XVI (987-1793), Tome II, 2e édition, Paris: Maison Platt, 1999.
^[1]Gadoury, Victor, Monnaies Françaises, 1789-2019, 24me éd., Monaco: Éditions Victor Gadoury, 2019.
Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.

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France 1792-D 12 deniers

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