5 Cents Pattern

The French Mint produced a series of postwar aluminium pattern coinage in 1946 as the provisional government worked to rebuild a destroyed monetary infrastructure — the Nazi occupation had stripped France of metals, machinery, and institutional continuity. This piece is one of several denominations essayed that year, most of which never advanced to circulation strikes.

Aluminium was the pragmatic choice: cheap, abundant, and already proven in occupied-era emergency issues.