Posted 14 years ago
renoir911
(36 items)
This is a 20 F LOUIS XVIII gold coin (20 Francs).
It measures 2 cm across.
Face reads: LOUIS XVIII ROI DE FRANCE
Under the face, there is a horsehead and next to it "MICHAU" in extremely small capital letters.
Back shows value, 20 F
1819
I'm interested in knowing more about this coin from the experts here.
France has gold coins that go way back in time. They had different denominations from 5 Francs up to 100 Francs. The actual gold content of this piece is .1867 ounces of pure gold. You have the crown on top of the Flour de Lis shield/coat of arms. On the obverse (the heads side) you have King Louis the 18th, his name and the country. The French changed the coin many times on both the obverse and the reverse but on the 20 Franc, the gold content was always .1867 oz. of pure gold (I think) The coin should measure pretty close to 21mm across but may be a little less due to the rub off of the soft gold. Very few of these coins remain today in conditions better than the one you have here. They were put to a great deal of use, not only in France but around the world as well. On the grade scale of 1-70 I would say this coin is somewhere around fine-20 to very fine 35. Not a bad looking older piece of gold from across the pond. New, the coin would have been a little less than 1/5th of an ounce of pure gold. Now with the "rub" taken into effect, it weighs a little less than that. Total original weight overall would have been 6.4516 grams thereabouts.
Apologies for the long delay in responding, divorce will do that to a person. Thank you for your awesome response bahamaboy. I appreciate it very much.
i have 1101 old coins...
bahamaboy is right on the money. All I can add is that this coin was minted at the Paris mint and has a mintage of 2,350,000 making this a common date and basically only worth bullion value.