fjt_955464 - LOUIS PURSES, WALLETS Porte-louis, niellé n.d.

LOUIS PURSES, WALLETS

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From the Middle Ages until the middle of the 19th century, deniers, écus, and then the first francs and centimes, were carried in purses, alms pouches, or small leather change purses, often attached to the belt. When, in the second half of the 19th century, the Second Empire put into circulation more than one hundred million 20-franc gold coins minted with the image of Louis Napoleon III, it was necessary to create a safe and practical system for storing and individually transporting these precious coins. The craftsmen imagined the manufacture of a sort of coin box, which took the name of coin box, then gold holder, and quickly transformed into Louis holder, the first name of the Emperor, but also a reminder of the first gold Louis created at the end of the reign of Louis XIII in 1641.