(sold for $35.0)

1786, Royal France, Louis XVI. Nice Silver Hexagonal Medal / Gambling Chip. R!

Medallist: Gatteaux References: F. 13389. Denomination: Hexagonal Medal - used as a gambling chip at the royal gambling table! Condition: Numerous circulation marks (confirming, that this medal has circulated as a gambling chip), otherwise VF+ Mint Years: ca. 1786 (the date of this issue is assumed by a pattern ecu coin, which was struck with a very similar reverse design!) Weight: 11.78gm Diameter: 33mm Material: Silver

Obverse: Draped bust of Louis XVI right, designer`s signature (GATTEAUX) below. Legend: LUDOV. XVI . CHRISTIANISS . Reverse: Crowned cipher (floral double L) of Louis XVI within wreath.

For your consideration a very attractive early silver gambling chip, probably used at royal gambling events as proposed by Michel Prieur in his "Jetons X." catalogue. The offered specimen shows also typical circulation marks and wear of an actually circulating silver chip. The reverse reminds also strongly on the milled pattern ecu, designed by the J.P.Droz during 1786, which has never made it into mass production. A very interesting and early gambling token and a great addition!

Louis XVI or Louis-Auguste de France (Versailles 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793 in Paris) ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the 10th of August 1792 Insurrection, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. He was the only king of France to be executed.

Although Louis was beloved at first, his indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to eventually hate him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime.[citation needed] After the abolition of the monarchy in 1792, the new republican government gave him the surname Capet, a reference to the nickname of Hugh Capet, founder of the Capetian dynasty, which the revolutionaries wrongly interpreted as a family name. He was also informally nicknamed Louis le Dernier (Louis the Last), a derisive use of the traditional nicknaming of French kings. Today, historians and Frenchmen in general have a more nuanced view of Louis XVI, who is seen as an honest man with good intentions, but who was probably unfit for the herculean task of reforming the monarchy, and who was used as a scapegoat by the revolutionaries.