FRANCE - LOUIS XIV - QUART D’ÉCU AUX HUIT L 1691 RENNES - PCGS AU58 - TOP POP

Louis XIV (1643-1715), quart d’écu aux huit L, first type, 1691, struck at Rennes.

Obverse: draped and cuirassed bust of the king right, wearing the full wig, date 1691 below. Legend LVD XIIII D G FR ET NAV REX, with a sun after D G. Reverse: cross of eight addorsed L’s in pairs, each arm topped by a crown breaking the legend, a fleur-de-lis in each angle. Legend CHRS REGN VINC IMP, for Christus regnat, vincit, imperat. Mint mark 9 (Rennes) at the centre, within a circle.

Near-perfect reformation! On a broad flan with very attractive cabinet toning showing blue and golden highlights. About Uncirculated.

Top Pop: this is the only graded example!

Note: to finance the War of the League of Augsburg, Louis XIV launched the first reformation of the coinage in late 1689. Instead of melting down the old coins, the mints restruck them directly with the new type of the eight L’s, at a raised face value to the Treasury’s profit. The new dies usually covered the old design imperfectly, leaving its portrait and legend legible beneath the new strike. A reformation as clean as this one, with the undertype almost entirely gone, is the exception.