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319

1720 A [Paris Mint] John Law Livre d’Argent Fin. Gadoury 296.

Currency:CAD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:300.00 CAD Estimated At:700.00 - 750.00 CAD
1720 A [Paris Mint] John Law Livre d’Argent Fin. Gadoury 296.
SOLD
475.00CAD+ buyer's premium (95.00)
This item SOLD at 2019 May 02 @ 19:38UTC-4 : AST/EDT

Buyer’s Premiums will be added on all items as per the Terms & Conditions of the sale. Invoices will be emailed out after The Toronto Coin Expo.

1720 A [Paris Mint] John Law Livre d’Argent Fin. Gadoury 296. Choice Extremely Fine, a boldly struck example of this extremely rare and intriguing issue. The legends are full on either side, the date, mintmark and differents all sharp, with each individual letter and number nicely squared off. The design detail is equally strong, with the boyish bust of the young King showing all of the fine hair, face and drapery detail in his robes, with just light wear at the highest points. Pleasing deep golden toning, the surfaces hard and free of all but the most trivial circulation marks. Note that this variety has the expected engraver’s mark before the date, and that the inner band of the reverse crown is incomplete, showing just the bottom band there. The Livre d’Argent Fin is important in many ways. It was struck in fine silver, a radical change from the .917 silver coinages normally struck in France (and much different from the low-grade billon issues that were struck earlier). This rarity was struck only at the Paris Mint (then at the Louvre) and struck only from January 31 to March 30, 1720 – it was demonetized on December 1, 1720 and replaced by the 1/6 Ecu issue, which had been authorized a few months earlier and struck in the usual .917 silver alloy. In his 1999 article The Compagnie des Indes and the Premier Benefice des Monnaies: French Coinage and the Mississippi Scheme, 1719-1720 published as part of a slim volume entitled “Canadian Numismatics,” Michael Hodder noted that dies were sent to Metz, Reims and Bordeaux but none were struck at those mints, while patterns for a ½ livre d’argent were actually produced. The rarity of the issue is no doubt due in part to the problems the Paris Mint had in refining silver alloy, especially the silver that had come in from jewelry, plate or bullion that was being “hoarded” (according to John Law) by the public. Law was able to persuade authorities to issue an order on February 9, 1720 that actually forbade the circulation of all coins, and ordered them to be brought to the mints to be exchanged for paper notes, and all mints were to suspend the striking of silver and gold coins. That order lasted just under two weeks, but even in that short time, Law was able to bring in a large amount of specie - or to confiscate it from owners who refused to bring in coin and trade it in at the rate of 100 livres in notes for 105 livres in coin (a bad move for those who had silver and gold though, as the value of paper money quickly entered a freefall and lost over 70 percent of its value by October of that year!). Hodder also noted that “the Livre d’Argent was struck in large numbers but it didn’t really fit into the French coinage system due to its odd fineness and many hundreds of thousands must have been melted.” Another good reason for the melting of this issue is that the value of the fine silver it contained was actually HIGHER than its legal value, something that almost never happened in the French coinage system. It was authorized at a value of 1 Livre (or 20 sols), but had a silver value of double that amount in paper money by July, 1720 – anyone lucky enough to get one in commerce would have doubled their money by melting the coin then and there! John Law’s dislike of coinage in general would have certainly been exacerbated by the fact that ordinary citizens – and not the French crown! – would have been able to profit from this issue, and it was quickly demonetized as mentioned above, replaced by a coin of the same general size but lower silver fineness, ensuring that a profit flowed back to the French Treasury. One of the most coveted of all the John Law issues – something unique in the French coinage series and pretty much the poster coin for John Law and the “Mississippi Bubble.”
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