Hearing Ecus....

I know these aren't ancient, but they are still pretty historical figures & the world section still doesn't get a ton of replies to threads other than "game or contest" threads.

When I don't see any ancients of interest I continue to drift into world coins. Lately, I have focused on French and the three figures below were high on my want list.

First is Louis XIV. He really needs no introduction. This coin took nearly a month to arrive from France. It went from France to NY Customs, then to Montreal for 11 days, then NY customs and a week to get to me recently.

The last one is, of course, Marie Antoinette's Husband.

My Louis XIV example is the typical overstruck type.


Louis XIV (1638 - 1715 A.D.)
AR Ecu
O: LVD•XIIII•D•G (soleil) FR•ET•NAV•REX, Bust with square neckline.
R: Lettering: SIT•NOMEN•DOMINI• E BENEDICTVM 1693 M Crowned round arms of France within sprays.
Toulouse - flan réformé
38mm
27.45g
Dy# 1520


Louis XV ( 1710 - 1774 A.D.)
AR Écu au bandeau
O: LUD·XV·D·G·FR·ET NA·RE· BD(entrelaçées), Head with headband left.
R: SIT NOMEN DOMINI BENEDICTUM 1761 L, Crowned round arms of France within sprays.
Bayonne Mint
41mm
29.24g
Dy# 1680, KM 512.12


Louis XVI (1754 - 1793 A.D.)
AR Écu aux branches d'olivier
O: LUD•XVI•D•G•FR• - ET• NA•RE•BD(entrelacées); Ornamental stitching on uniform.
R: • SIT NOMEN DOMINI - BENEDICTUM 1783 A, Crowned arms of France within branches.
Paris Mint
42mm
29.48g
Dy# 1708, KM 564.1

 

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Nice coins Mat

 

I'm not normally into this time era but I wouldn't mind some more Spanish coins from it (I'm Hispanic so I can't help it ).

Charles III, Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish Empire
AR 2 reales
Obv: CAROLUS . IIII . DEI . GRATIA . 1780, bust right
Rev: HISPAN[IARUM]. ET IND[IARUM]. REX. LIMAE (as monogram). 2 R[EALES] M.I.(name of assayer), crowned Spanish arms between the Pillars of Hercules, the arms adorned with a ribbon with the motto PLVS VLTRA ("further beyond")
Mint: Lima
Ref: KM 76

 

Great coins Mat! I recently discovered big French ecus as well and now I'm on the lookout for them. It satisfies the guilty pleasure of collecting large silver coins.

 

Nice big silvers. As a matter of fact I have a piece of 8 in my collection that I received from a neighbor when I was a small boy.

 

Well done @Mat ! 14-15-16 Ecu's ! That is a neat denomination to collect, and I can see why you are wondering there.

I was actually reading about them the other day, as I thought the Ecu was the European Currency Units from my old Finance days. Was surprised to see these in my readings! Now you are enlightening me more!

Big Silvers! Nice

 

We all love large silver coins! Nice coins @Mat

 

I bet those are pretty sweet in hand. Congrats Mat!

 

Awesome coins! I dig 18th century stuff, I'd love to get L. XIV and XVI, but I do have a cool 40 mm XV from one of JA's recent auctions.





Here's a cell phone vid experiment.

 

These are three great coins, Mat! What can you tell me about the overstriking on the XIV? You mentioned that overstriking was common. Did they strike the XIV's issue on top of another coin? Was it a general recoining or something that just happened often enough?

These are not something I see often. Thanks for posting!

 

@chrsmat71 I love the little jumping dog under the bust on your coin. That's great.

 

Thanks, I thought that was cool also! I guess those are the engravers marks.

 

I've been picking up the odd modern French coin too. No écus yet... very nice!!

 

Nice additions, Mat!
Plenty of history in those coins. I still need to get an example of coinage for the ' 'Roi Soleil'.

This is one of my favorite french coin types, the Ecus de Six Livres, specially the types struck in 1793 by the Convention Nationale during the worse days of the French Revolution - the 'Days of Terror'.
A coin difficult to get in good condition, specially for mints besides the Paris mint. This one was struck at Lyon.

 

I really like those ecus. Have a few myself, all pretty beat:





My favorites are the ones that wound up going to Switzerland and getting counterstamped and re-edged. I only have two of those:

 

I have a couple of Irish ECU coins (in the European Currency Unit sense). As I recall, they were minted to mark a European summit meeting in Dublin - some were handed out to the Great and the Good, some sold to collectors. There were silver 5 & 10 Ecus and a gold 50 Ecu. The deer from the reverse was also used on the £1 coin also launched in 1990.


Not very ancient, I'm afraid!
ATB,
Aidan

 

Oh well, the term "ancient" is used extreeemely flexibly in the Ancient Coins board anyway. Those 5, 10 and 50 ECU pieces were issued by the Irish central bank but were not legal tender. The similarity between the word écu (just like the Italian scudo or the Portuguese escudo, the term écu is derived from Latin scutum = shield/CoA) and the abbreviation ECU was of course intended. If we leave double denomination issues aside, the only ECU coins that were actually legal tender were issued by Belgium.

Christian