A double Louis d'or from 1640/1
What can be seen on the double Louis d’or from 1640/41?
On the front, as on all Louis d’ors, we see the bust of the king with his title in Latin. LVD XIII D G FR ET NAV REX means Louis XIII, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre.
The royal portrait on the front is new. It replaces the old royal coat of arms with lilies, which gave the Écu (= shield) its name. In keeping with the Roman model, the king wears a laurel wreath and – completely un-Roman – a goatee beard, which was fashionable in France at the time.
On the reverse side is a cross formed from the letter L for Louis. All four arms of the cross bear French crowns adorned with the Bourbon lily. This lily appears again between each arm of the cross. The inscription on the reverse side reads CHRS REGN VINC IMP, which translates as Christ reigns, conquers and commands.
But that is not what makes this coin so special. What is remarkable is the small Templar or paw cross at the end of the reverse legend. It tells us that this coin is one of the last pieces to have been minted with a hammer.
Why is the Templar cross on a Louis d’or coin so remarkable?
In 1640, the Council of State of Louis XIII decided to reform the French monetary system.
Claude de Bullion, the minister responsible for finance, was entrusted with the task. He developed the Louis d’or, a gold coin of stable weight and gold content, which at the time of its creation had a calculated value of 10 pounds 10 sols. This value could rise or fall, much like the Krugerrand today, depending on the price of gold.
But where should these new coins be minted? In Jean Varin’s new mint? Since 1639, he had been running a private mint called the Moulin des Étuves, which used water power in a very modern way to speed up the production of blanks. The coins were minted using a spindle press, which was also modern at the time. An alternative was the royal mint, where Louis de Lacroix served as master of the mint between 1635 and 1642. However, the mint was resistant to technical innovations. This was for economic reasons: coin smiths skilled in hammering were rare, highly valued and well paid, and the new type of mints no longer needed these skilled workers. Instead, the machines were operated
by semi-skilled labourers, while a few highly specialised technicians supervised the installation and operation of the machines. To decide where the coins should be minted, both companies were commissioned to produce double Louis d’ors. This allowed the results and efficiency to be compared directly. Between 29 October 1640 and 23 January 1641, both companies minted the double Louis d’or in parallel. It quickly became apparent that hammer minting was not competitive. Jean Varin was entrusted with minting the new Louis d’ors. Most of the double Louis d’ors were produced in the Moulin des Étuves, making the hammer-struck Louis d’ors from the old Paris mint a great rarity.
What is the value of a double Louis d’or coin minted with a hammer?
On 4 October 2025, the Gadoury auction house in Monaco will auction one of the rare double Louis d’or coins with a paw cross. The piece is estimated to be worth 30,000 euros. Let’s wait and see what it will fetch.
Texte & image : Ursula Kampmann
