FRANCE - CONSTITUTION - 2 SOLS MONNERON À LA LIBERTÉ 1792 BIRMINGHAM - NGC PF64 BN

Constitution (1791-1792), Monneron 2 sols à la Liberté, 1792, struck at Birmingham, proof.

Obverse: Liberty seated left beneath a radiant sun, holding a pike topped by a Phrygian cap and leaning on the Declaration of the Rights of Man (DROITS DE L’HOMME ARTIC. V), a cockerel on a column behind her. Legend LIBERTÉ SOUS LA LOI, in exergue L’AN IV DE LA LIBERTÉ. Reverse: MEDAILLE / QUI SE VEND / DEUX-SOLS / A PARIS CHEZ / MONNERON / (PATENTÉ) in six lines within a circle. Legend REVOLUTION FRANÇAISE, date 1792 below.

Proof strike. Incuse lettered edge: LA. CONFIANCE. AUGMENTE. LA. VALEUR. Glossy brown toning. Proof.

Note: in 1791-1792, small change had all but vanished from circulation. The Monneron brothers, Paris merchants, had “confidence medals” struck at Birmingham, at Matthew Boulton’s Soho mint. The wording “médaille qui se vend deux sols” (a medal sold for two sols) spared them from presenting it as coinage. The venture was short-lived: bankruptcy in March 1792, the law of 3 May 1792 banning private coinage, then a September decree banning their sale. These pieces nevertheless circulated until the end of 1793. Proof examples were struck with a special pair of dies that saw very little use afterwards.