SWITZERLAND. Neuenburg/Neuchâtel. Alexandre Berthier, Prince de Neuchâtel, 1806-1814. Pattern 5 Francs 181. (1813) (Tin, 37 mm, 16.87 g, 12 h). ALEXANDRE PRIN. – DE NEUCHATEL. Bare bust of Alexandre Berthier to right. Rev. PRINCIPAUTE – DE NEUCHATEL / 181 . Value 5 / FRANCS within crowned laurel wreath. Edge: plain. Demolde/Wavre -, cf. 296. Divo -, cf. 154. Divo/Tobler -, cf. 252. HMZ -, cf. 2-720e. Richter (Proben) -, cf. 1-632. An apparently unpublished variety of this popular pattern. Tiny marks, otherwise, extremely fine.
The rare patterns struck for Alexandre Berthier (1753-1815) represent an ultimately unrealized attempt to introduce the French monetary system into the Principality of Neuchâtel. Berthier, one of Napoleon’s most trusted marshals and his long-serving chief of staff, had been granted the principality by the emperor in 1806 and ruled it largely through appointed governors. He commissioned the celebrated engraver Jean-Pierre Droz to prepare dies for new franc-denominated coinage, but only a small number of trial pieces were produced. The project was abandoned in late 1813 amid the imminent Austrian invasion of Neuchâtel and the collapse of Napoleonic rule, leaving these patterns as rare witnesses to a monetary reform that never came to fruition. What makes the present piece particularly remarkable is that this type, without a signature on the obverse and with a plain edge, was previously unknown and is absent from the otherwise extensive literature devoted to these patterns