France Dating napoleonic Paris Mint medals

[Chris Boonzaier]

Founf this useful article...

http://fortiter.napoleonicmedals.org/miscellany/poincons.htm

[Hendrik]

Thanks for the link, Chris.

I'm a bit puzzled by this one sentence there : "At some time after 1950 it was decided to add the year in which the medal was struck, giving then the cornucopia, the name of the metal, and the year in arabic numerals."

Never seen the year marked on a Paris Mint medal yet. What I have encountered is the cornucopia mark, followed by a numeral indicating the quality of the metal and the name of the metal as in 1 ARGENT or 2 ARGENT (1st grade, 2nd grade silver). Also, more recent strikings have an asterisk behind the numeral. There's actually quite a variety in those Paris Mint cornucopia period markings, amongst them those where the name of the metal is not present but where the medal is marked with the metal grade numeral only or where two cornucopia marks were used etc.

To my knowledge, the cornucopia era markings can be dated as follows :

Pre-1906 : ARGENT or 1 ARGENT

1906-1913 : 1 ARGENT or 2 ARGENT between two cornucopia markings

1913-1975: 1 or 2

1975 - now : 1* or 2*

Similarly, the metal markings for gold were resp. : OR - 1 OR - 3 - 3 within the same timeframes.

Cheers,

Hendrik

[g_deploige]

Here a useful website for the state marks of france on silver and gold

Poin?ons d'Etat

and a website withe the marks of the french manufactures

R?pertoire des auteurs