1720-BB Twenty Sols

Coin Details

Description

The 1720 Twenty Sols is a French colonial billon coin struck at the Strasbourg mint (mint mark BB) during one of the most turbulent financial periods in French history. This denomination was issued at the height of the Mississippi Company scheme engineered by Scottish financier John Law, who served as Controller General of Finances for the French Regency government under Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. John Law had persuaded the Regent to grant his Compagnie des Indes (Company of the Indies, popularly known as the Mississippi Company) a monopoly on trade with France's North American colonies, particularly the vast Louisiana Territory. Law's system involved issuing paper money backed by the anticipated wealth of the colonies, and this Twenty Sols coin represents the parallel effort to provide physical coinage for colonial transactions during this period of speculative frenzy. The coin was struck in billon, maintaining the traditional composition of French colonial coinage. The design reflects the transitional nature of this period in French numismatics, falling between the established coinage of Louis XIV and the mature issues of Louis XV. The denomination of twenty sols (equivalent to one livre or 240 deniers) placed this coin at a relatively high value for colonial small change. The Mississippi Bubble, as it came to be known, collapsed dramatically in 1720, ruining thousands of investors and destabilizing the French economy for a generation. Coins from this brief era are tangible artifacts of one of the earliest and most spectacular financial bubbles in Western history. The rapid inflation and subsequent deflation that accompanied Law's monetary experiments had lasting effects on French colonial monetary policy, contributing to a deep suspicion of paper currency that persisted in France for decades.