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Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985
  • Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985
  • Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985
  • Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985
  • Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985
  • Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985
  • Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985
Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985

Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985

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Monnaie de Paris · Belle Épreuve

Émile Zola — 100 Francs Silver 1985 « Germinal »

Centenary of the publication of Germinal, 1885–1985

Metal Silver 999‰ (fine silver)
Weight 15 g
Diameter 31 mm
Quality Belle Épreuve (Proof)
Design Alain Le Breton, after a drawing of a coal-mining headframe
Engraver Émile Rousseau, Monnaie de Paris
References Gadoury 902 — KM# 957a — Le Franc F.452
Delivery Original capsule and case · numbered certificate signed by Jacques Campet, Director of the Administration des Monnaies et Médailles

Obverse. Bearded right-facing portrait of Émile Zola, his name in cursive at lower left, the title of the novel and the dates 1885–1985 along the right rim. The portrait is drawn from contemporary photographs of Zola at the time he was writing the Rougon-Macquart cycle.

Reverse. An industrial scene that reads almost as a woodcut: the headframe of a coal pit on the left, a row of factory chimneys, a colliery wagon in the foreground. The Republican motto LIBERTÉ • ÉGALITÉ • FRATERNITÉ arches above. Face value 100 F and date 1985 below.

Context

Struck for the centenary of Germinal, Zola’s 1885 novel of a miners’ strike in northern France. The choice to put the pithead and the smokestacks where one would normally find an allegory of the Republic is unusual — it places industrial labour, the world Zola wrote about, at the centre of the coin rather than as a backdrop. Struck in fine silver and in Belle Épreuve quality, with mirror fields and frosted relief.

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