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Rouen Mint 1857: Pieforts & Proofs from the Last Breath of a Dying Mint

In 1857, the ancient Rouen Mint — active since the days of Roman Rotomagus — struck its final coins before closing under Napoleon III’s centralization reforms. Though its dies were newly prepared and sharply engraved by Jean-Jacques Barre, the mint struggled with France’s recently adopted bronze alloy, a copper-tin mixture designed for longevity but notoriously difficult to strike. The unforgiving metal caused premature die failures and incomplete impressions across every denomination.

Before the presses were dismantled and transferred to Paris, the Administration ordered one last sequence of mechanical verifications. Rouen was instructed to produce experimental pieforts — double-thickness strikes of the 1, 2, 5, and 10 centimes — to test maximum metal displacement in the deep recesses of the Imperial Eagle. Alongside these dramatic pieforts, the mint also created a vanishingly small number of proofs (flans brunis) on regular-thickness polished planchets — possibly only a single example of each denomination. These were never intended for circulation; they existed solely to document the mint’s final technical precision.

Today, the 1857-B pieforts and the elusive proofs stand among the rarest and most romantic artifacts of the Second Empire bronze series — the last whisper of Rouen’s minting tradition, captured in bronze at the very moment its furnaces went dark.

This specimen represents the piefort striking of the year, its surface adorned with a delicate mirror finish that strongly suggests a proof-piefort origin. Whatever its exact purpose at the moment of creation, the result is unmistakable: a piece of exceptional quality and uncommon refinement. These special strikings are profoundly rare and far too often overlooked — far rarer, in truth, than most collectors realize. Countless collections, even the most ambitious, quietly lack a coin of this nature, leaving pieces like this as treasured remnants of a craft few ever had the chance to witness.

Item#: 11219
Issue: Essai-Piefort
France
1857-B 10-Centimes
Catalogue#: Maz-1698A
Grade: NGC NGC MS/66 RB Finest Certified by NGC, none equal or higher.
Extraordinary Quality
Rare, especially in this state of preservation

A note on quality of Obsolete Bank Notes.

Unlike regular US Government notes, bank notes were not printed on the finest of cotton-bond paper or with the best of inks. They were not meant to circulate for a long period of time or circulate throughout the nation. They usually circulated on a local or state level, and probably not more then a few years at best. They were printed on whatever paper was available at the time. On some notes one can see some of the wood or pulp chips in the paper. In some cases, they were printed on earlier notes that were no longer in use. The technology of acid-free paper was not there yet, as seen with some of our national historical documents, and paper was much scarcer than we can today imagine.

These notes had to be printed on semi-wet or moist paper, or the ink would not properly adhere. They were very labor intensive, and were printed by hand, one side at a time. They would manually ink the press, place the damp sheet in it, and run the roller over it. The sheet would be hung to dry, and the same process of wetting and printing would be repeated for the reverse. In the case where more than one color was used, the process would have to be repeated for each color. Unpurified water was used in the wetting process, thereby introducing more minerals or impurities to the paper. As a consequence, many of these notes are very difficult to locate without discoloration, color bleeding or what looks like water staining, due to the wetting process. As if that was not enough, they were individually cut with scissors or crude cutting boards, making them very difficult to find with good margins, or the design itself not cut into it.

When grading them today, the coloration, bleeding or some stains, do not deduct from the grade, for the great majority have these problems. Margins, alignment and condition of the paper itself are the main grading points. However, when finding some of these notes without many of the usual problems, one should recognize that it is not the norm. That is one of the reasons why I have virtually all of these notes certified. They get sealed in archival holders, minimizing the aging and toning effects by not being exposed to the elements, and it also gives the client reassurance as to its authenticity and grade.

Warning: I have seen some very white and super clean examples, but, upon close examination, they were nothing more than modern reproductions.