France, Kingdom. Louis XVI AV Louis d'or 'à la corne'. 'Horned head' variant. Strasbourg mint, 1786. Dies by B. Duvivier. LUD • XVI • D • G • FR • ET NAV • REX •, bust to left; DUVIV on neck truncation, mintmark below / CHRS • REGN • VINC • IMPER, crowned coats-of-arms; mintmark below, mintmark and date above to left. Duplessy 1707A; Friedberg 476 (horn on head); Gadoury 361 (R5). 7.60g, 24mm, 6h.

Extremely Fine; edge bruise. Extremely Rare.

From the GK Collection;
Ex Auktionen Münzhandlung Sonntag, Auction 31, 25 November 2019, lot 173 (hammer: EUR 3,300);
Ex Auktionen Münzhandlung Sonntag, Auction 30, 4 June 2019, lot 115.

The scandal of the Louis d'or with a 'horn' from the Strasbourg mint broke out shortly after its discovery. This famous type has a curved bulge on the forehead, which was immediately understood as a horn and thus as an allusion to the fact that the king was unable to secure his succession and was betrayed by the queen. Comparisons can inevitably made to prints of the period depicting Louis with the horns of a cuckold. Even if some numismatists only classify the 'horn' as a random die break or error, the prevailing opinion is that it was an intended change. After the so-called 'Affair of the Diamond Necklace' at the court of King Louis in 1785 in which the queen was involved, the monarchy was further discredited by the appearance of these coins. Most of the pieces that were produced at the time were apparently melted down in a timely manner, but a few evidently survived.