ROYAL
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Estimate €25,000

Description

FRANCE / CAPETIANS - FRANCE / ROYAL Louis XIII (1610–1643). Louis d’or with a small cross, hammer-struck 1640, A, Paris. Obv. LVD. XIII D. G. FR. ET. NAV. REX. Laurel-wreathed head of the King facing right, (date) below. Rev. CHRS - REGN - VINC - IMP (variant). A cross formed of eight L’s, each arm crowned, with the mint mark in the centre, flanked by four lilies radiating from the centre. Dy.1304 - G.58a - Fr.410a; Gold - 6.73 g - 26 mm - 5 o’clock From the Plozévet (29) hoard discovered in 2019, No. 23, with its certificate, then sold at MDC 9, lot 451 (€50,000 + fees). NGC XF 45 (5785097-001). Good centring and hammer strike for this type, with the axis at 5 o’clock. Even circulation wear. Slight golden highlights in the inscriptions. TTB. A very rare type, known as the ‘croisette’, by the Master of the Paris Mint, Louis de la Croix, struck by hammer between 22 October and 31 December 1640. Following the creation of the gold louis in March 1640, the royal government decided, for its production, to put the Paris Mint – known as the ‘old Mint’, which still used hammer striking and was headed by the master Louis de la Croix (also spelled Delacroix, with a Templar cross as a distinguishing mark) – against the Moulin Mint, which used the balance-wheel method, and whose engraver and manager was Jean Warin, a protégé of Richelieu. The three denominations—the louis, the double louis and the demi-louis—were thus struck using both methods: hammer and balance-wheel (mill). When the public discovered these new coins, they rejected those from the old Mint, regarding them as counterfeit, due to their difference in aesthetic and artistic quality compared with Warin’s work. Louis de la Croix benefited from the services of two well-known engravers: on the one hand, Jean Darmand Lorfelin, Chief Engraver of the Coins of France, and on the other, Claude Ballin, the King’s goldsmith (see the double louis for sale at Vinchon Expert, 30 May 2017, lot no. 114). The coins engraved by Darmand Lorfelin feature a more refined portrait than that of Ballin, which was formerly, out of ignorance, referred to as the ‘big head’. This portrait by Darmand Lorfelin is similar to that found on the 1641 silver demi-francs struck in Grenoble (No. 3169 in this catalogue) and in Arras using dies engraved by the Master Engraver. These louis, with their unusual and crude bust and imperfect strike, were banned in January 1641. These louis, struck in the traditional manner with a hammer, mark the end of more than 20 centuries of manual production in favour of mechanical coinage. Louis de la Croix’s gold coins dated 1640 and 1641 are all extremely rare and of great historical interest. According to Duplessy (1999), only two examples from 1640 are known (the Beistegui Collection at the BnF’s Cabinet des Médailles and Gallia auction no. 232, photograph at no. 234 [1,980£ in 1987!]), but to these must be added the specimens that have since come to light: iNumis 39 no. 2046; NGSA 7 no. 1283 and Gadoury, 2017 no. 397, which, together with our specimen from the Plovezet Treasury, brings the total number of known specimens to six. It should be noted that different portraits exist, recognisable in particular by the shape of the ribbons – straight or twisted – and by different locks of hair. Bibliography: F. Arbez, C. Charlet, A. Clairand and J.-Y. Kind, ‘The gold coins struck under Louis Delacroix, Master of the Paris Mint (1635–1642)’, BSFN December 2016, pp. 396–402 https://d10dakqizeg4uw.cloudfront.net/VAE19/1272.mp4

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Auction time 10/14/2026 at 9:30 AM

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1272 - FRANCE / CAPETIANS - FRANCE / ROYAL See original version (French)

1272 - FRANCE / CAPETIANS - FRANCE / ROYAL
See original version (French)