Helly everyone! So for whatever reason, when I try to upload this photo to a text blog, it won’t work, therefore I have to write it as a photo caption. Hopefully this won’t cause any problems.

My object for today’s class is a French 5 centimes coin that I wear as a necklace. The coin is approximately a quarter of an inch wide and high, and looks silver. It smells metallic, a smell which instantly gives your mouth a funny and unpleasant taste. Despite its age, the coin is still very detailed, suggesting it didn’t have much circulation.

The front of the coin has the letters RF surrounded by what seems to be some sort of bough. The R and the F are combined with a flourish on their serifs and stand for la République Française. Above the RF is a war helmet, which I happen to know is of the French style thanks to my class in French civilization. Around the outer edge of the front side of this coin, there is a small detail that looks like a chain made of arrows, like this: <<<<. In the center of the coin, there is a hole.

The back side of the coin features more detail than the front. The same chain details runs around the outer rim and there seems to be another plant which surrounds the central hole. The top of the coin reads “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the French national motto that was formed after the Revolution. On the left side of the hole, one finds the number 5; on the right, the abbreviation “Cmes.” This informs us that this coin is worth 5 centimes, or 5 cents. On the very bottom of the coin, we find its date of mint, 1918.

I bought this coin perhaps 2 years ago at a street vendor in New York City. She made a variety of necklaces with old coins and I was drawn to this particular coin for many reasons, most notably that it is French and I am a francophile, that I was leaving for France within the year, and that the script and decoration on this coin is beautiful.

Long before I found it on the streets of New York, however, this coin was traveling the world. According to my research, this coin must have been minted between 1917 and 1920 after World War One, and because materials were running low after the war, this coin is made of copper and nickel. The hole in the center served to set it apart from other coins of the same size but of greater value. Approximately 33 million of these coins were minted and therefore they are not of great value. One tidbit of information that I found very interesting is that during World War 2, when the Germans occupied France, all francs were printed without the letters for the République Française, RF, because the Germans thought it would be too nationalistic and cause rebellion against their soldiers.

While I have no idea who carried this coin, I like to imagine its life: who owned it? What did they purchase with it? How long did it spend in each owner’s pocket before being passed on to another? Did anyone stop to look at the beauty of its creation when it was just another 5 centimes?

Unfortunately, I will never know this information and this coin stopped being useful in 1999 when France adopted the Euro. It still makes me happy, however, knowing that something I wear around my neck has such a rich, secret history tied so closely to a country I love.