Louis XIII (1610-1643). Essai de dix louis d’or à la tête laurée et buste drapé 1640, A, Paris.

FRANCE / CAPETIANS Louis XIII (1610-1643). Ten gold Louis pattern, laureate head and draped bust 1640, A, Paris.
Obv. LVDOVICVS. XIII. D. G. FRANC. ET. NAV. REX. Laureate and draped bust of the King, facing right, bellow (date).
Rev. CHRISTVS. REGNAT. VINCIT. ET. IMPERAT. Cross composed by 8 Ls, each arm crowned, with A in a circle at the center, confined by four lilies diverging from the center.
Dy.1293 - G.63 - Drs (1987) PP2 - Kind BnF 1467 (TL) and 1468 (TC) - Fr.405 ; Gold - 67,18g - 48 mm - 6h.
NGC AU DETAILS CLEANED. Tiny old cleaning with some scratches on the obverse. Regular and homogeneous wear. The fields are burnished by little manipulation marks, with a golden patina. Very rare.

The making of Gold multiples to the modules of 8 or 10 Louis by Jean Warin is known by two documents from the National Archives, published and analyzed by Fernand Arbez and Christian Charlet, Une médaille d'or de 100 livres, à l'effigie de Louis XIII, volée et restituée à Jean Warin en 1641, BSFN, march 2014, p.66-70. The gold multiples of 54 grams or 67.5 grams are described as 8 and 10 gold Louis coins since 1878 and the work of Hoffmann. This denomination has been taken over by Ciani in 1926, Duplessy in 1989 and 1999, Droulers in various editions, etc. However, F. Leblanc in 1690 describes those coins as pleasure coins. More recently, for J. Lafaurie and P. Prieur, in the third unpublished volume of their work, Les Monnaies des Rois de France, those examples are patterns of non-chosen types. The documents from the archives published by Arbez and Charlet confirm the date of those patterns engraved by Jean Warin in 1640. Nevertheless, those monetiform patterns didn't have any legal value. We choose the denomination 8 (or 10) Gold Louis pattern.