25 Sols Assignat

The 25 sols assignat of 1792 sits at the practical end of the Revolutionary monetary experiment — small enough in denomination to function as everyday currency for working people, replacing the copper and billon coin it was never quite accepted as. Assignats at this level saw brutal circulation: passed hand to hand in markets, worn through in months, and frequently counterfeited. The Paris authorities were aware of the counterfeiting problem well before this issue; the watermark was one of several successive attempts to outpace forgers who were operating on both royalist and foreign payrolls.

Droz was an exceptional technician, better known for his medal work and his later role at the British Royal Mint. His involvement here was a matter of Revolutionary necessity — the government needed engravers who could cut plates resistant to crude replication.