(Verkauft für $83.0)

1553, Royal France, Henry II. Scarce Silver ½ Teston Coin. Toulouse mint!

Mint Year: 1553
References: Duplessy 984, Sb. 4574.
Denomination: ½ Teston (5th type with bust)
Condition: Minor roughness spots in reverse, otherwise about XF!
Diameter: 27mm
Material: Silver
Weight: 4.57gm

Obverse: Bare bust of Henry II of France right.
Legend: HENRICVS . II . D . G . FRANCO . REX .

Reverse: Crowned shield with royal arms (three lis symbols), flanked by crowned initials (H) of the king. Mint initial (M) below.
Legend: XPS . VINCIT . XPS . R . XPS . IMPER . 1553 . R .

Henry II (French: Henri II) (31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis III, Duke of Brittany, in 1536.

Henry pursued his father's policies in matter of arts, wars and religion. He persevered in the Italian Wars against the House of Habsburg and tried to suppress the Protestant Reformation even as the Huguenots became an increasingly large minority in France during his reign.

The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), which put an end to the Italian Wars, had mixed results: France renounced its claims to territories in Italy, but gained certain other territories, including the Pale of Calais and the Three Bishoprics. France failed to change the balance of power in Europe, as Spain remained the sole dominant power, but it did benefit from the division of the holdings of its ruler, Charles V, and from the weakening of the Holy Roman Empire, which Charles also ruled.

Henry suffered an untimely death in a jousting tournament held to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis at the conclusion of the Eighth Italian War. The king's surgeon, Ambroise Paré, was unable to cure the infected wound inflicted by Gabriel de Montgomery, the captain of his Scottish Guard. He was succeeded in turn by three of his sons, whose ineffective reigns helped to spur the ghastly consequences of the French Wars of Religion between Protestants and Catholics.