{"product_id":"frankreich-8-louis-d-or-1640","title":"⁣⁢Gold Strike - Louis d'Or - 1640⁤⁣","description":"\u003cp data-gp-tth-0=\"50002380\"\u003eIn 1640, after thirty years of reign and only three years before his death, Louis XIII (1601-1643) undertook a major reform of the French monetary system, which remained in place until the end of the Ancien Régime. Since the reign of Saint Louis (1214-1270), the benchmark for the French system had been the Gold Écu. Louis XIII replaced it with a bimetallic system, based on two new coins: the Louis d'Or and the Louis d'Argent - commonly called the Silver Écu. Inspired by the Spanish pistole, the Louis d'Or was created on March 31, 1640, under the direction of the king's Superintendent of Finances, Claude de Bullion. He enlisted the talented sculptor and engraver of Walloon origin, Jean Warin, director of the Paris Moulin mint and a protégé of Richelieu, Louis XIII's most influential minister. Warin had perfected the engraving of French coins by mandating the use of the balance, a machine for mechanical minting. Thanks to this technique, he managed to spectacularly improve the quality of the royal effigy engraved on the new coins resulting from the reform. In the 17th century, the great writer and philosopher Voltaire spoke of this historic monetary evolution in these terms: \"We have equaled the Ancients in medals. Warin was the first to lift this art out of mediocrity, towards the end of Louis XIII's reign.\" The Louis d'Or put into circulation in 1640 weighed 6.75 grams with a value of 10 livres tournois. It was also available as a Double Louis (13.5 g) and a Half-Louis (3.376 g), also used as means of payment. In parallel, three commemorative coins, intended for collections, were issued: the 10 Louis d'Or, the 8 Louis d'Or, and the 4 Louis d'Or. The 8 Louis d'Or, of which you hold the new strike today, is called \"au col nu\" (bare neck) due to the unadorned depiction of the king on its obverse. It differed from the 10 Louis d'Or only by its weight of 53.8 g. This magnificent coin is a numismatic rarity, of which only 20 examples were struck. One of them was awarded to a collector for $120,000 at an auction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"pieces-et-monnaies.com","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50502422954331,"sku":"3349640110","price":104.9,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0021\/7887\/5438\/files\/2014.2014.webp?v=1747311050","url":"https:\/\/www.pieces-et-monnaies.com\/en-wf\/products\/frankreich-8-louis-d-or-1640","provider":"pieces-et-monnaies.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}