Talk:Écu

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File:France 1641 Ecu d'Or (Louis13).jpg scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that the featured picture File:France 1641 Ecu d'Or (Louis13).jpg, which is used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for October 23, 2020. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2020-10-23. Any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be made before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:32, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The écu was a gold and silver coinage system introduced in France in 1266 by Louis IX, so called because the coins featured the French coat of arms. The silver coin proved popular but the gold did not, because of the unrealistic ratio of 1:10 used, which did not properly reflect the metals' exchange rate. The écu remained in use for 500 years. Depicted here are two écu coins, the first made of gold and minted in 1641, in the reign of Louis XIII, and the second made of silver and minted in 1784, in the reign of Louis XVI. Between these two dates, exchange rates were unstable, new coins were issued, and existing ones revalued periodically.

Coin design credit: Kingdom of France; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection

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Fineness under Louis IX

That coin of 1266 illustrated at the top of the article seems to be the wrong color for gold. I'm wondering if it might have a low fineness, something like 10-karat gold. The article does not say (it only mentions fineness in a later century) and I haven't found an Internet source that does. --174.89.48.182 (talk) 07:12, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]